Asian

Security Practice : Material and

title:
Ideational Influences
author: Alagappa, Muthiah.
publisher: Stanford University Press
isbn10 | asin: 0804733481
print isbn13: 9780804733489
ebook isbn13: 9780585053684
language: English
subject National security--Asia.
publication date: 1998
lcc: UA830.A856 1998eb
ddc: 355/.03305
subject: National security--Asia.
 Page iii

Asian Security Practice

Material and Ideational Influences
Edited by
Muthiah Alagappa

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

STANFORD, CALIFORNIA
1998

 Page iv
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
© 1998 by the Board of Regents of the
Leland Stanford Junior University
Printed in the United States of America
CIP data appear at the end of the book

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CONTENTS
Preface ix
Contributors xv
Introduction 1
Muthiah Alagappa
Part I. Conceptual and Historical Perspedctives
1. Rethinking Security: A Critical Review and Appraisal of 27
the Debate
Muthiah Alagappa
2. International Politics in Asia: The Historical Context 65
Muthiah Alagappa
Part II. Security Practice: Country Studies
The Major Powers
3. China: Security Practice of a Modernizing and 115
Ascending Power
Wu Xinbo
4. India: Modified Structuralism 157
Kanti Bajpai

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5. Japan: Normative Constraints Versus Structural 198
Imperatives
Yoshihide Soeya
Northeast Asia
6. North Korea: Deterrence Through Danger 234
David Kang
7. South Korea: Recasting Security Paradigms 264
Chung-in Moon
8. Taiwan: In the Dragon's Shadow 288
Roger Cliff
South Asia
9. Bangladesh: A Weak State and Power 315
Iftekharuzzaman
10. Pakistan: The Crisis Within 338
Samina Ahmed
11. Sri Lanka: The Many Faces of Security 367
Nira Wickramasinghe
Continental Southeast Asia
12. Myanmar: Preoccupation with Regime Survival, 390
National Unity, and Stability
Tin Maung Maung Than
13. Thailand: The Elite's Shifting Conceptions of 417
Security
Panitan Wattanayagorn
14. Vietnam: Struggle and Cooperation 445
Kim Ninh
Maritime Southeast Asia
15. Indonesia: Domestic Priorities Define National 477
Security
Dewi Fortuna Anwar
16. Malaysia: Reinventing the Nation 513
K S. Nathan

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17. The Philippines: State Versus Society? 549
Noel M. Morada and Christopher Collier
18. Singapore: Realist cum Trading State 579
Narayanan Ganesan
Part III. Conclusion
19. Asian Practice of Security: Key Features and 611
Explanations
Muthiah Alagappa
20. Conceptualizing Security: Hierarchy and Conceptual 677
Traveling
Muthiah Alagappa
Reference Matter
Notes 701
Bibliography 745
Index 821

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PREFACE
Asia is now in the post-postcolonial era. Though Asian states were
liberated from colonial rule and foreign domination some four to five
decades ago, much of the international politics of Asia in the post-orld
War II period continued to be dominated by external powersespecially
the rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union. Now that
this dominating overlay has been removed, Asian states are interacting
more autonomously with each other. This is not, however, a return to
history. Asia is an integral part of the global international system, and
the Western nations, especially the United States, continue to be
important actors in Asia. Nevertheless, for the first time in a long
while, Asian states have greater freedom and control over their
interests, goals, and destiny. Concurrently, Asia, notwithstanding the
financial crisis in 1997, has been economically vibrant; many states
have already modernized themselves or are rapidly so doing. Their
leaders seek to take advantage of this opportunity not only to protect
and enhance the security and welfare of their states, but also to
actively participate in the writing of the rules of the game in the
political, economic, and security arenas. It is thus both opportune and
imperative to investigate the thinking and behavior of Asian elites in
these areas.
This study investigates the security thinking and behaviortermed
security practice in this bookof Asian elites as well as that of other
segments of society that challenge the elites' conception of security.
Specifically, it identifies the critical security problems and
approaches, and the factors that underlie or shape them, for each of
the sixteen selected countries. The study also identifies and explains
the key common features that characterize security practice in most if
not all Asian states, as well as conceptualize security on the basis of
the Asian experi-

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ence. Its purpose is not to provide time-sensitive guidance for policy
makers on immediate issues such as the situation across the Taiwan
Straits, the confrontation on the Korean peninsula, the Indo-Pakistani
conflict, the conflicts in the South China Sea, nuclear proliferation, or
the many domestic conflicts in Asian states. Rather, the intention is to
illuminate the sources and nature of such internal and international
security concerns of Asian elites and to explain their behavior at the
domestic, regional, and global levels. Such an understanding will
facilitate analysis and may contribute to policy making in the long
term. It may also enable analysts and policy makers to make more
accurate judgments about the future of the region as well as helping
them to shape initiatives to promote peace and security in Asia and the
Pacific.
The study, which has a long horizon in time and substantial historical
content, identifies the following five features as common to the
practice of security in most, perhaps all, Asian states: (1) The nation-
state is the primary security referent, but it is also deeply problematic
in many countries; (2) both the domestic and international arenas are
sources of insecurity for Asian states; (3) political survival, defined
broadly, constitutes the core of the security concerns of Asian elites,
but it does not exhaust their security agendas; (4) self-help strategies
have been dominant in the Asian approach to security, but
increasingly cooperation is also becoming significant; and finally, (5)
Asian security practices have been dynamic, and more change is in the
offing. Although this is by no means an exhaustive list, collectively
these elements describe much of the security practice in Asian states.
These features are not unique to Asia. The specific content of certain
of them are distinctive, but in a temporal and developmental sense
rather than in cultural terms.
The security practice in Asian states is often a product of the interplay
of ideas, interests, and power. No single international relations theory
or paradigm can effectively capture and explain the various features.
The realist paradigm continues to be salient, but it has to be
supplemented with insights from other international relations theories
as well as from theories that deal with state-society interaction. To this
end, the study advances two propositions. First, the nature of the
political units and state-society interaction is as important as
international structure in influencing the security behavior of Asian
states. Explanations of Asian security practice must therefore draw
upon and, where necessary, integrate factors at the intrastate, unit, and
international levels. Arbitrary emphasis on a specific levelas, for
example, in weak state analysis or in neorealism, which privilege the
intrastate and international levels, respectivelywill by definition
preclude certain crucial aspects of Asian security practice or minimize
their consequences, and thus distort

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analysis. Second, it is argued that only a combination of material and
ideational (social) factors can explain the full range of the security
concerns and behavior of Asian states. The argument is not that
material factors are unimportant, only that by themselves they have
limited explanatory power. The inclusion of social factorssuch as
political identity of the state, national self-conceptions, political
legitimacy, and the national and international historical-cultural-
institutional contextas well as other considerations like geography and
level of development adds to material structural explanations in at
least three ways: by influencing the determination of social reality and
hence the definition and urgency of the security problem; by
extending the causal chain and thus providing a more complete
explanation of the problems and behavior; and by explaining
variations in behavior across states as well as changes over time in the
behavior of individual states. Social factors also help to explain
behavior that may not make sense in the context of material
explanations.
Based on the Asian and other experiences, it is argued that the
conceptualization of security, though it must include and build on the
realist definition, should extend to concerns beyond the international
military threat to political survival. It must be capable of
accommodating a multiplicity of referents, both internal and
international challenges to political survival, a more comprehensive
interpretation of political survival and the inclusion of a range of
related values, and an array of approaches including not only self-help
strategies but also cooperation and community building. The study
advances a conceptualization of security based on several levels of
abstraction. At the generic level, security is defined as the protection
and enhancement of values that the authoritative decision makers
deem vital or the survival and well-being of a community. This
inclusive definition identifies the essence of security and the criteria
for classification of an issue as a security concern, but it is of limited
analytical usefulness. However, by descending the ladder of generality
we can derive analytically relevant concepts from it. Such a hierarchic
conception of security has both more internal coherence and greater
external relevance, and, in many ways, as demonstrated by the
proliferation of security adjectives, it is already common practice.
As with my earlier project, Political Legitimacy in Southeast Asia, I
decided to invite mostly younger scholars to write the country
chapters and to involve more established scholarsinternational
relations theorists, regional and country specialists on Asian securityin
an advisory capacity to review, discuss, and comment on their work.
In addition to concentrating some of the best minds on the subject, I
believe that the inclusion of leading theorists and regional specialists
and the facilitation

 Page xii
of their interaction with younger scholars fosters the development of
theoretically informed study of Asian security, especially among
younger Asians. It has also helped in the development of new
networks within and among all three groups, and, I hope, has also
increased the interest of the international relations theorists in Asian
security. The authors and the senior scholarsdrawn from twenty
countries in East, South, Southeast, and Central Asia, the United
States, the United Kingdom, France, Israel, and Australiamet in two
stimulating and productive workshops: first in August 1995 in
Honolulu and then in Singapore in March 1996.
Covering sixteen countries, involving 17 contributors, 39 senior
scholars, and 17 readers, and spanning three years, the study turned
out to be a major undertaking, much larger and intellectually more
challenging and complicated than I had anticipated. Miles Kahler
characterized it as the "Angkor Wat of security studies," and Peter
Katzenstein termed it as "wrestling with an elephant." The more
deeply we, the contributors, probed, the less sure were we of our
understanding of the subject matter. At times our analysis and
findings looked good; at other times they appeared commonplace. The
experience, at least for me, has been truly humbling but also very
rewarding. The other contributors and I hope that the readers will find
the book useful and as stimulating as writing it has been for us. We
consider our work not the final word, but one among few comparative
studies that seek not only to provide substantial analysis but also to
elevate the study of Asian security from mere description of
contemporary issues and articulation of policy options to inquiries that
are conceptually and theoretically informed. Several of our findings
require further investigation, refinement, and development; some
perhaps warrant reformulation as well. We strongly commend others,
especially Asians, to undertake such inquiries. I have come to realize
in the course of the last decade or soand especially during my search
for contributors to this bookthat very few Asian scholars are trained
and willing to engage in this kind of scholarship. I hope that the
foundations and others who promote the study of Asian security will
in the future be more supportive of scholarship that focuses on
concept development and theoretically informed inquiry.
Many people have helped in this undertaking. Vinod Aggarwal, David
Elliott, Peter Katzenstein, Stephen Krasner, Michael Leifer, Richard
Little, Andrew Mack, S. D. Muni, John Ruggie, and Yang Jiemian as
members of the advisory committee and Yoshihide Soeya as co-
collaborator gave generously of their time and expertise. Participating
in both workshops, they read and reread several chapters, and some
commented on the penultimate drafts. Many of their comments and

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insights have been incorporated into the conceptual and country
chapters. Thomas Christensen, Wimal Dissanayake, James Dorian,
Mehrdad Haghayeghi, Manuel Montes, Charles Morrison, Darini
Rajasingham, Terry Rambo, Johan Saravanamuttu, Akio Watanabe,
Geoffrey White, Robert Wirsing, Zakaria Haji Ahmad, Suchit
Bungbongkarn, Chan Heng Chee, Chin Kin Wah, Soedjati
Djiwandono, François Godement, Ha Young-Sun, Miles Kahler,
Bruce Koppel, Kwa Chong Guan, Lee Lai To, Jonathan Pollack,
Akihiko Tanaka, Yaacov Vertzberger, Jianwei Wang, and Tom
Wingfield attended one of the two workshops and commented on one
or more chapters. James Cotton, Harry Harding, Dwight King, Ron
May, Andrew Nathan, Denny Roy, Stephen Cohen, Donald
Emmerson, Cho Oon Khong, Andrew MacIntyre, Mike Mochizuki,
Michel Oksenberg, David Steinberg, Richard Stubbs, William Turley,
David Wurfel, and Raju Thomas read one or more of the penultimate
draft chapters. Robert Scalapino and Sheldon Simon read and
commented on the entire manuscript. To all these scholars I would
like to express my deep appreciation and thanks. They made an
enormous contribution to the project, and it has been my
privilegeprofessionally and on a personal basisto interact with them.
Russ Phillips, Peter Geithner, Christine Wing, Kimberley Ashizawa,
and Jun'etsu Komatsu, although they were not direct participants,
provided strong support for the project.
I would also like to thank the contributors to the book. Their
knowledgenot only of the countries of their specialization but also of
the broader regionis remarkable, and their willingness to ground their
inquiry in a common conceptual framework and to rework their
contributions several times is admirable. Our reading one another's
chapters at the various stages and interacting not only during the
workshops but also after them has contributed to the book's coherence
and facilitated better understanding of different perspectives. The
synergy thus created has added value to the project in several other
ways as well. From my own perspective, it has contributed immensely
to my understanding of Asian security. The contributors are a talented
and diligent group of scholars. I greatly value the opportunity I have
had to work with them. I would like to thank Chung-In Moon and K.
S. Nathan for stepping in at a late stage to write the chapters on South
Korea and Malaysia.
Thanks are also due to the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Ford
Foundation, the Center for Global Partnership, and the East-West
Center for providing funding support; the Institute of Southeast Asian
Studies for cohosting the second workshop in Singapore; Michel
Oksenberg, Bruce Koppel, Kenji Sumida, Lee Jay Cho, and Charles

 Page xiv
Morrison of the East-West Center for their support; Don Yoder for his
copyediting; Christopher Collier and Rosevelt Dela Cruz, who served
as my research interns during the latter part of the project; Jeanne
Hamasaki for so ably organizing the two workshops; Ann Takayesu
for so efficiently word-processing the entire manuscript as well as
providing excellent secretarial support throughout the project; and
Catherine Blickos and Marilu Khudari for their secretarial assistance
during its various stages.
Finally, I would like to express my deepest appreciation for my wife,
Kalyani. Without her love, forbearance, and support, I could not have
devoted as much time and effort as I have to this book. My children
Radha, Shanthi, and Padmajahave contributed in their own ways.
Through their teens, college years, and now as they begin their own
professional careers, they have been a source of joy, pleasure, pride,
and strength.
MUTHIAH ALAGAPPA

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CONTRIBUTORS
SAMINA AHMED is a senior research analyst at the Institute of
Regional Studies, Islamabad, Pakistan. She received her Ph.D. from
the Department of Political Science at the Australian National
University. Her research interests include South and Southwest Asian
politics with special emphasis on civil-military relations, and defense
and strategic analysis.
MUTHIAH ALAGAPPA is senior fellow and director of the Center
for Politics and Security at the East-West Center in Honolulu. He has
a Ph.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts
University. His research interests include international relations
theory, international politics of the Asia-Pacific region, government
and politics in Southeast Asia, and the interaction of the United
Nations with regional institutions.
DEWI FORTUNA ANWAR is currently head of the Regional and
International Affairs Division at the Center for Political and Regional
Studies, the Indonesia Institute of Sciences (PPW-LIPI).
Concurrently, she holds the position of research executive at the
Center for Information and Development Studies. She received her
Ph.D. from Monash University, Australia. Her primary research
interests are Indonesian foreign and defense policies and ASEAN
political and security cooperation.
KANTI BAJPAI is associate professor in the Centre for International
Politics, Organization, and Disarmament, School of International
Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He received his
Ph.D. from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His areas of
research interest are strategic studies, models of regional security and
cooperation, and South Asian government and politics.


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ROGER CLIFF is a political scientist at the Rand Corporation. He
received his Ph.D. from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson
School of Public and International Affairs. His research interests
include Asian security and Chinese and Taiwanese politics and
foreign policy.
CHRISTOPHER COLLIER received his Ph.D. from the University of
Hawaii at Manoa. He was a research fellow at the University of the
Philippines and the Ateneo de Davao University in 1990-92, and head
of research for the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore at Amnesty
International's International Secretariat in 1995.
NARAYANAN GANESAN is senior lecturer in political science at
the National University of Singapore. He also teaches at the Southeast
Asian Studies Programme at that university. He received his Ph.D. in
Political Science from Northern Illinois University. His research
interests are Southeast Asian politics and foreign policy.
IFTEKHARUZZAMAN is presently the executive director of the
Regional Centre for Strategic Studies, Colombo. He is permanently
employed as research director of the Bangladesh Institute of
International and Strategic Studies, Dhaka. He received his Ph.D.
from the Central School of Planning and Statistics, Warsaw. His
research interests include politics, security, and interstate relations in
South Asia.
DAVID KANG is assistant professor of government at Dartmouth
College, and adjunct assistant professor of business administration,
Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College. He received his Ph.D.
in political science from the University of California at Berkeley. His
research interests include political economy, Asian development, and
international relations of Asia.
CHUNG-IN MOON is professor of political science and associate
dean of the Graduate School of International Studies, Yonsei
University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland,
College Park. He is completing a book-length manuscript on national
security, economy, and defense industry in South Korea.
NOEL M. MORADA is assistant professor in the Department of
Political Science, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon
City, and a fellow at the Institute for Strategic and Development
Studies (ISDS), Manila. He is also a Ph.D. candidate in political
science at Northern Illinois University. His research interests include
Southeast Asian security and comparative political economy, ASEAN
external relations, and democratization issues in Asia.

 Page xvii
K. S. NATHAN is professor of international relations, Department of
History, University of Malaya. He received his Ph.D. in international
relations from Claremont Graduate School in California. His research
interests include strategic studies, big power relations in the Asia-
Pacific region, ASEAN regionalism, and Malaysian security and
foreign policy.
KIM NINH is the program officer of the Program on State and
Society at the Asia Foundation. She received her Ph.D. from the
Department of Political Science, Yale University. Her research
interests include political culture and social change, with an emphasis
on Southeast Asia, particularly Vietnam.
YOSHIHIDE SOEYA is professor of political science in the Faculty
of Law, Keio University. He received his Ph.D. from the Department
of Political Science, University of Michigan. His research interests
include politics and security in the Asia-Pacific region and Japanese
diplomacy.
TIN MAUNG MAUNG THAN is a fellow at the Institute of
Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, and coordinator of its Regional
Strategic and Political Studies Programme. He is also a Ph.D.
candidate in the Department of Politics, School of Oriental and
African Studies, University of London. His research interests include
democratization, political economy, and security issues in the Third
World. He is a specialist on Myanmar.
PANITAN WATTANAYAGORN is lecturer and director of the
Defense Studies Program at the Institute of Security and International
Studies at Chulalongkorn University. He received his Ph.D. from
Northern Illinois University. His research interests include foreign,
security, and defense policies of Thailand, and Southeast Asian
regional security.
NIRA WICKRAMASINGHE is a senior lecturer in the Department of
History and Political Science, University of Colombo. She received
her Ph.D. in modern history from the University of Oxford. Her
research interests include ethnic conflict, social theory, and global
civil society.
Wu XINBO is an associate professor at the Center for American
Studies, Fudan University. He received his Ph.D. from the
Department of History, Fudan University. His research interests
include China's foreign and security policies, Sino-American
relations, and Asia-Pacific political and security issues.

 Page 1

INTRODUCTION
Muthiah Alagappa
Despite and in some ways because of the end of the Cold War,
security in Asia continues to be a major concern both in and outside of
the continent. In the decades since World War II, Asia has been the
scene of several interstate wars: the Korean War (1950-53), the First
(1946-54) and Second (1959-75) Indochina Wars, the Cambodian
conflict (1978-91), the Sino-Vietnamese war (1979), the three Indo-
Pakistani wars (1948, 1965, and 1971), the Sino-Indian border war
(1962), and the Afghanistan conflict (1979-89). Asia has also been
beset by many internal conflicts, including communist insurgencies,
regional rebellions, ethnic and religious clashes, and contests over
political legitimacy that have led to political upheavals and
revolutions. Although only a few of these wars and conflicts had their
origins in the Cold War, nearly all of them were influenced by it in
varying degrees. With the termination of the Cold War, some of the
conflicts have ended. Others persist, although they have become much
more localized. The tensions in the Taiwan Straits, in the Korean
peninsula, and between India and Pakistan are dramatic
manifestations of the continuing conflicts.
New apprehensions, rivalries, and tensions are also surfacing, due in
large part to uncertainty about the future positions and behavior of
China, Japan, the United States, Russia, and India and about the state
of relations among these countries. The rapid increase in China's
economic power is perhaps the most significant factor contributing to
long-range apprehensions in Japan, some Southeast Asian countries,
and India. It is unclear whether China as a great power will be benign
or will seek to dominate its neighbors. Meanwhile, China and the two
Koreas are


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concerned that Japan may seek to develop military capabilities and
become a ''normal" power, while Japan worries about a rising China, a
nuclear-armed Korea, and a nationalist Russia. India worries about the
growing power of China, and the other South Asian countries fear that
economic reforms may further increase Indian power and domination
of the subregion. All these concerns are informed not just by ongoing
and anticipated changes in the distribution of power, but also by
perceived ambitions and aspirationsfor example, the desires on the
part of China, Japan, and India for "great power" statusas well as
deep-rooted historical experiences, rivalries, and suspicions. The
Chinese and the Koreans harbor deep suspicions of the Japanese, the
Japanese mistrust the Russians and Chinese, the Vietnamese and
Indians have suspicions about the Chinese, and the Indians and the
other South Asian peoples mistrust each other. In such an
environment, even minor incidents assume great significance, easily
escalating tensions in the bilateral relations of many of these
countries. The fears and concerns, particularly in Northeast Asia and
to a lesser degree in Southeast Asia, also reflect uncertainty over the
future role of the United States in the security of the region and the
U.S.-Japan security relationship. If the United States should withdraw
abruptly from Northeast Asia, or if U.S.-Japanese relations should
turn sour, then it is assumed that Tokyo will most likely rearm, setting
off a strategic competition among indigenous powers. Although most
Asian nations take a positive view of the U.S. security role, there is
also a desire in the region, particularly in China, to avoid American
hegemony as well as American-led containment of China. The
concern over American hegemony and distrust of Japan underlie, in
part, Beijing's opposition to the revised guidelines for U.S.-Japan
defense cooperation issued in September 1997.
The uncertainties and concerns just outlined are exacerbated by
domestic unknowns in several key countries. China, Russia, India,
Indonesia, Vietnam, and Pakistan all are undergoing or are likely to
undergo fundamental economic or political transitions, the outcomes
of which are by no means certain. It is probable that in the course of
their transitions these countries will be confronted with major political
and socioeconomic challenges that could lead to internal tensions and
conflict. There could be international ramifications as well. Even
more consequential would be the emergence of xenophobic
nationalism in any of the major countries, including Japan, which
itself is the midst of a political transition. More immediately, there is
the possibility of turmoil or even collapse in North Korea, which
could transform the situation in Northeast Asia. These internal
transitions and their international repercussions are likely to be
prolonged.

 Page 3
The foregoing uncertainties and the resulting unpredictability in the
international politics of Asia are intensified by the irrelevance of
familiar strategic frameworks, such as bipolarity, the strategic triangle
(U.S.-USSR-PRC) and nonalignment, that previously guided state
policies. An additional complication is the collapse, termination, or
redefinition of alliances, alignments, and agreements centered on
Moscow (Soviet-Vietnamese, Soviet-Indian, Soviet-North Korean)
and Washington (Sino-American, U.S.-Philippines Base Agreement,
U.S.-Japan security treaty), which had underpinned security and
stability in Asia. There is a quest in the region for new analytical and
policy frameworks, as well as for a new architecture for regional
security. Thus, despite the prevailing relative peace, security and
stability remain a major focus of concern in Asia.

An Emerging Asian Regional System

The term Asia originated with the early Greeks, who used it as a
synonym for the Persian Empire (Toynbee 1957: 238-40). Later, on
the basis of a mariners' chart, all lands east of the Urals in the
Eurasian landmass progressively became designated as Asia.
Notwithstanding its Greek origin and accidental delimitation, and
despite the fact that Asia, unlike Europe, lacks cultural and
civilizational unity,

1 the concept of Asia has become entrenched both in the West and in
Asia. It has also acquired an indigenous quality in Asia. The continent
of Asia is usually depicted in maps as stretching from Iran to Japan,
including the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. There is,
however, little agreement on the exact meaning of Asia as a concept.
The name has been used in several ways, both in Asia and in the
West.2In the 1950s and 1960s, the use of Asia, for example in the pan-
Asian movements formed in the context of the struggle against
colonial rule, conformed fairly closely to the cartographic
delimitation. More recently, Asia has been appropriated by some in
the West as well as in Northeast and Southeast Asia to refer to the
group of countries in the latter two subregions. This has been the case,
for example, in the Asian versus Western values debate (over such
issues as the content of human rights and the applicability of
democracy to Asia) and in the determination of membership in such
regional institutions as the forum for Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation (APEC), the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), and the
Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM). Other countries including Australia
have in recent years laid claim to the label of Asia as well.

In this study, Asia is used to refer to the collective of countries in

Northeast, Southeast, and South Asia.3This essentially geopolitical

 Page 4
delimitation is based on the geographical location of these countries in
the continent of Asia and on their security interdependence. China is
the interconnecting core of this security region. It has security
interests in all three subregions, and most countries in those
subregions have security concerns that are focused on or call for
interaction with China in one or more ways. The adjacent subregional
systems and the dominant actors in themChina, Japan, Russia, India,
Indonesiaare becoming increasingly more interdependent and
interactivesome more than others. Japanese economic power and the
projection of American military and economic power also lend
credence to the idea of Asia as a security region composed of several
interacting subsystems with Northeast Asia as its core for the present
and foreseeable future.
The end of the Cold War has contributed to the regionalization of
international politics (Alagappa 1991b; Friedberg 1993-94). Security
in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, or Africa can now be investigated
independently of developments in other regions. During the Cold
War, Asian regional security was closely linked toand in many ways
subordinated to, if not subsumed bythe Soviet-American confrontation
and the associated Sino-Soviet conflict. Attempts by Asian countries
to escape the dynamics of superpower competition through
movements and strategies such as nonalignment, neutrality, and peace
zones were only partially successful. In Japan, initial sentiments for
neutrality gave way to a security alliance with the United States.
Indonesia under Suharto tilted toward the West. India's nonalignment
was compromised by its treaty with the Soviet Union. And the
proposals by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
for a Zone of Peace, Freedom, and Neutrality (ZOPFAN) and a
Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapons Free Zone (SEANWFZ) remained
unrealized (Alagappa 1991c, 1987b).
In the post-Cold War era, however, there is no comparable
overarching global dynamic. Local and regional dynamics are
becoming more salient, and states appear to have greater latitude in
shaping their immediate environments. Unlike the economic domain,
where the Asian economies and their regional activities are becoming
integrated into the global economy, the security domain seems to be
witnessing the development of a much more independent regional
system.
Asia is now entering a new era that may be characterized as post-
postcolonial. In the 1940s and 1950s, Asia, though freed from a long
period of colonial rule and foreign domination, emerged only as a
subordinate system, subject to the dynamics of the global ideological
conflict.

4In the 1990s Asia is emerging as a more autonomous system, the

dynamics of which are likely to be determined much more by
indigenous actors than by extraregional powers. The development of
this

 Page 5
system is likely to be gradual, however, and its configuration may not
become firm for some time to come. Indigenous powers will become
progressively more consequential in the structure and dynamics of the
system, although the United States will continue to play a critical role.
U.S. influence, however, is likely to gradually lessen. The emergence
of an Asian regional system has generated interest among political
analysts with regard to its likely structure and dynamics, as well as the
question of whether Asia will be a zone of peace or a zone of conflict.
Analysts have depicted the emerging situation in Asia as a five-power
balance of power system (Dibb 1995), as "ripe for rivalry" (Friedberg
1993-94), and as heading for instability (Betts 1993-94). It has been
said that "Europe's past could well be the future of Asia" (Friedberg
1993-94: 7), and that Asia "may well become the most important zone
of conflict in the twenty-first century" (Buzan and Segal 1994: 20).
The persistence of historical antagonisms, the absence or weakness of
institutions (and the belief that this situation is unlikely to improve
dramatically), the weakness of the Asian countries as modern states
and the diversity of their political and economic structures, the
existence of an incipient arms race and the potential for its further
escalation, and the belief that war is still a cost-effective instrument of
policy in Asia: these are among the reasons why such analysts
privilege the realist lens and forecast a "back to the future" scenario
for Asia.

Although concerned with many of the same factors and developments,

other analysts, primarily Asian specialists and policy makers, are less
pessimistic about the future of Asia.6Many reject the relevance of
Western paradigms and the analogy with Europe. Among the
arguments advanced in support of this position are that the situation in
Asia is radically different from that of Europe, that Asian countries
attach greater weight to economic matters than do their European
counterparts, and that Asian countries conceive of security in a broad
or comprehensive manner.7In this view, Asian countries are quite
capable of charting an independent course, the future can be shaped,
and the current period presents a rare window of opportunity that must
be used to create the necessary structures for peace and security and to
foster a benign atmosphere conducive to economic growth and
modernization (Koh 1995; P. Ho 1995).
The latter view is not rooted in any clear-cut theoretical framework;
rather, it rests on beliefs and aspirations and is policy oriented. It is
possible, however, to construct this viewpoint in conceptual terms as
one that seeks the development of a functionally based international
society.8The argument would run like this. Although Asian states may
be competitive and have a history of antagonistic relations, they now
have a

 Page 6
mutual interest in pursuing economic modernization, which requires
international stability and the avoidance of war. This mutual interest,
coupled with increasing economic and social interaction, will
gradually give rise to a functionally rooted international society.
Through multilateral forums, such as Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation (APEC) and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), Asian
states will gradually seek to limit the use of force, provide for sanctity
of contracts, and arrange for assignment and recognition of property
rights. Asian cultures, such as Confucianism in East Asia, may also be
deployed as a civilizational basis for such a society. A group identity
might also be developed through the interaction of various groups,
such as the East Asian Economic Caucus, with similar organizations
in North America and Europe.
The foregoing scenariosboth of the pessimistic and optimistic
varietiesmay or may not be fulfilled. The concern of the contributors
to this book is not to validate such predictions about the future
security situation in the region or to offer other predictions. Rather,
the aim is to lay the groundwork for an in-depth understanding of
Asian security by investigating conceptions of security in sixteen
Asian countries.
In this book we undertake an ethnographic, country-by-country study
of how Asian states conceive of their security. For each country, we
investigate its security problematic and how it has changed over time
as well as the policies deployed by the central decision makers. We
also seek to explain the construction of security in these countries.
This inside-out or bottom-up approach facilitates identification of
similarities and differences in the security thinking and behavior of
Asian countries and exploration of their consequences. The crucial
insights into the dynamics of international security in the region
provided by this approach can then form the basis for further inquiry,
including debates about the future of the region. How Asian nations,
particularly the larger countries, conceive of security will have a
significant bearing on conflict and cooperation, and also on the
management of international affairs at the subregional, regional, and
global levels. For this reason, it is essential to have a good
understanding of their security thinking and behavior termed security
practice in this book.

Asian Security and Its Broader Relevance

As Asia becomes more powerful and consequential in international
economics and politics, security in Asia becomes an issue of concern
to other countries and regions as well, particularly the United States
and Western Europe. The contemporary rise of Asian countries has
been labeled by some as the dawn of an Asian or Pacific century,
while others

 Page 7
have called it an Asian Renaissance and a "return to history," when
Asia was a cradle of major civilizations and an important arena for
international trade (see, for example, Commission for a New Asia
1994). Whether or not one agrees with such claims, it is a fact that
Asia, particularly East Asia, is emerging as a crucial power center in
the world. At present this is most evident in the economic domain. In
1993 Asia accounted for 25.9 percent of the world gross domestic
product (GDP), compared to about 4 percent in 1960. In 1993 the U.S.
share of the world GDP amounted to 26.3 percent, while that of
Europe amounted to 30.5 percent.

9Although it may be difficult to replicate the impressive growth rates

of recent years, it is likely that the East Asian share of world GDP will
continue to increase, in spite of some occasional setbacks like the
1997 currency crisis in several Southeast Asian countries.10The
ongoing economic crisis is generally viewed not as the end of the
Asian economic "miracle" but as a setback. Growth is expected to
resume in two to four years. The economies of South Asia,
particularly that of India, are also picking up speed. During the 1980-
95 period these economies grew at an average annual rate of 5.25
percent.11 If this growth rate is sustained and even marginally
improved upon, then the collective economic weight of Asia will
further increase.

On the basis of purchasing power parity, in 1995 Asia had three of the
ten largest economies in the world (China, Japan, and India). In 1994
Asia collectively accounted for 27.2 percent of global exports, 26.2
percent of global imports, and 37.5 percent of global reserves.12
Clearly, Asia is a crucial part of the global economy, and East Asia is
now one of three key economic regions of the world, along with North
America and Western Europe. Economic growth and industrialization
continue to rank high among the priorities of nearly every Asian
government. For this reason, among others, the already substantial
market, capital, and technological power and influence of Asia are
likely to expand.
Asian governments, with the exception of Japan, have little or no
inhibition about translating growing economic strength into political
and military power and influence.13 China and India clearly aspire to
regional and global positions of greater power, prestige, and influence,
which they seek to realize as their economic might grows. Even
Japan, despite many domestic and international inhibitions, has
publicly articulated its goal to seek an "honored place in international
society," and there is growing domestic support for Tokyo to play a
larger political role commensurate with its economic power. For
example, Japan has formally stated its desire to become a member of
the U.N. Security Council. These countries, particularly Japan and
China, may in the next three to four decades be in a position to
challenge the predominant

 Page 8
position currently enjoyed by the United States in the Asia-Pacific
region. Several other Asian countries have the potential to develop
into middle-rank powers that will rival, if not surpass, countries like
Canada and Australia. Some of these states, such as Indonesia, South
Korea, Thailand, and Pakistan, already seek to play regional and
international roles. The realization of these potentials for power will
dramatically alter the political and security landscape of the Asia-
Pacific region and, by extension, the world.
An investigation of Asian security assumes even greater urgency in
light of the growing assertiveness of Asian countries with regard to
the management of regional and global affairs. The broadening and
deepening of ASEAN, the enlargement of the ASEAN Post-
Ministerial Conference (ASEAN PMC), the launching of the ARF, the
active role of the ASEAN countries and Japan in seeking to influence
the direction of APEC, the attempt to create an East Asian Economic
Caucus (EAEC), and the Asian initiative in launching the Asia-Europe
Meeting (ASEM): all these developments are illustrative of the desire
of Asian nations to be masters in their own homes and to shape their
strategic environments.
The proactive stance of Asian governments in attempting to shape
their regional environment can be traced to several developments:
growing self-confidence, arising primarily from economic
achievements; recovery of and pride in their long histories and
civilizations (some East Asians, for example, attribute their economic
successes to cultural values); desire to avoid the foreign domination to
which they were subjected in the past; and recognition of the need to
maintain a stable and peaceful environment to facilitate further
economic growth.
The Asian countries, individually and collectively, have sought and
will continue to seek to influence the rules of the political, economic,
and security games in a changing world. In the area of human rights
and security games in a changing world. In the area of human rights
and democracy, for example, some Asian governments have
challenged the projection of Western values as universal and have
sought to provide an alternative framework for discourse on human
rights and governance.

14 Truly universal values, it is claimed, can emerge only from the

interaction and fusion of the values of the West and the East (Lee
Kuan Yew 1993; Mahbubani 1995). At the 1993 World Conference
on Human Rights in Vienna, the West was compelled to accept basic
economic and social rights and the right to development as part of
human rights, while the Asian governments had to accept the
existence of basic civil and political rights that are not entirely matters
of domestic jurisdiction (Boyle 1995: 80).

The claim by some prominent Asian leaders and officials that Asia
has a distinct value system, different from that of the West, further

 Page 9
underscores the need to study Asian security practice. Political and
sociocultural values not only shape domestic structures of domination
but also inform worldviews. They shape identities, interests, and
policies, and affect outcomes. Thus, uniquely Asian values, if they do
exist, can be expected to influence security practice as well.

15The implications merit inquiry. The claim to distinctive Asian

values has already been deployed in "West versus the rest" debates
over sovereignty, democratic governance, and human rights.16Samuel
Huntington has argued that in the post-Cold War era, "the great
divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict
will be cultural" (Huntington 1993: 22). He posits a Confucian-
Islamic alliance that will challenge the dominant position of the West
and seek to shape the world in non-Western ways. Former French
prime minister Edouard Balladur, in arguing for protectionist policies
on the part of Europe, stated that "the question now is how to organize
or protect ourselves from countries whose different values enable
them to undercut us."17

From an academic perspective, the study of Asian security will

broaden the empirical base of international relations and security
studies. Until now, European regional politics has been presented as
international politics. Concept and theory formulation and testing in
these subfields of political science have been grounded essentially in
the experiences of the North Atlantic countries, thereby contributing
to inadvertent Eurocentrism, as pointed out by Ken Booth (1979).
Asia is fertile ground to debate, test, and develop many of these
concepts and competing theories, and to counteract the ethnocentric
bias. For example, the status of Japan, once described by Prime
Minister Keiichi Miyazawa as an "economic superpower but political
pygmy," has been an issue of contention among the competing
theories of international relations. Neorealists, viewing the hybrid
state as an anomaly, claim that Japan will eventually emerge as a
normal power (Waltz 1993; Layne 1993). Kenneth Waltz asserts that
Japan will be the next great power and that it will be forced to acquire
greater military capabilities, including a nuclear capability (1993).18
Constructivists, on the other hand, do not necessarily see the current
position and orientation of Japan as an anomaly. Building on the case
made by John Ruggie (1983) for the possibility of functional
differentiation of units in the international system, they argue the case
for the coexistence of different kinds of states, including a trading
state like Japan (Jepperson, Wendt, and Katzenstein, 1996). They
deploy historical and cultural legacies to explain the current position
of Japan (Katzenstein 1993). Chalmers Johnson claims that Japan is a
problem for international relations theories, particularly neorealism
(Johnson 1993). His expla-

 Page 10
nation stresses the historical continuity of the Japanese tradition, in
particular the continuity of the essential role of the state. In his view,
the trading state and capitalist developmental state theories provide a
more accurate, if incomplete, framework for studying the international
behavior of Japan.
Many other issues of contention in the theory of international
relations, such as systemic versus unit-level explanations and
ideational versus material interests in explaining state behavior, can be
investigated or tested in the context of Asian experiences. Theories
relating to balancing behavior, the behavior of ascending and
declining powers, power transition and stability, interdependence and
security, and the emergence, development, and effectiveness of
international institutions can also be tested based on the Asian
experience. Because of its long history and rich cultural traditions,
Asia can provide many cases for the study of strategic culture and its
impact on the international behavior of states. There have already
been some good introductory works on the strategic cultures of China,
India, and Japan (Johnston 1995; Tanham 1992; Gordon 1992; Rosen
1995; Berger 1993). In addition to broadening the base for
international relations and security studies, theoretically informed
investigations will introduce much-needed rigor to the study of Asian
security, which until now has been predominantly empirical and issue
oriented.

19Theoretically informed inquiries of Asian security have been few

and far in between, and often fragmentary. Further, the analysis of
Asian security has explicitly or implicitly tended to privilege realism
or neorealism (for example, Friedberg 1993-94; Betts 1993-94; Dibb
1995; Buzan and Segal 1994). The relevance of other paradigms has
been little explored. A more comprehensive theoretically informed
research program is required.
Finally, Asia is representative of the wider world in several ways. As
in many other parts of the world, nation-states in Asia are still
problematic and, in several cases, subject to contestation. Asian states
share with many others several trends and experiences including
transitions to market economy, political liberalization and
democratization (in some countries) or resistance to political change
(in others), a colonial history, generational changes in leadership, and
changes in state capabilities. Asia comprises strong and weak states
with a wide variety of political systems and cultural traditions, in
different stages of political and economic development. It experiences
not only a relatively high incidence of political-military conflict but in
some subregions also a high degree of economic interdependence and
cooperation. Thus, Asia can be said to be more broadly representative
of the world than either North America or Western Europe. The study
of Asian security can provide insights

 Page 11
applicable to many other countries and regions. It may therefore be a
more suitable base for articulation of security and its elementsthe
second central purpose of this book.

Defining Security
Security continues to rank high on national agendas worldwide. It
commands enormous resources, including the sacrifice of life, liberty,
and property, the protection of which justifies the state in the first
place. The end of the Cold War has not altered these facts. The
anticipated peace dividend has materialized in only a few countries.

20Very large amounts of resources continue to be devoted to defense

in most countriesespecially in Asia. Termination of the Cold War,
however, has contributed to a rethinking of security, especially on the
part of the major protagonists in that ideological conflict.21 Receding
concern over a general nuclear war, the growing salience of regional
security issues, concern with "new" referents, dimensions, and threats,
and more generally the complex post-Cold War situation have
stimulated interest in the redefinition of security. Policy makers'
interest in broadening the scope of security has further stimulated the
controversy within the academic community over how security should
be defined. Since the early 1980s quite a few scholars have argued for
a broader definition.22Others have argued the contrary (see, for
example, Walt 1991; Morgan 1992; and Dorff 1994); at most they
accept only limited broadening of the concept, preferring to keep it
within the parameters of realism, the reigning paradigm for this
subject area, especially during the Cold War.

The debate over the redefinition of security is a welcome

development, but it has been largely abstract, lacking roots in
empirical investigation. In some respects it has also been a dialogue
without listeners. With a few exceptions, participants have been
talking past one another, more interested in expounding the merits of
their own paradigms and definitions and elaborating upon the
shortcomings of alternatives than in building on the strengths of
competing expositions. There is no shared understanding of security
(Lynn-Jones 1991: 53-54), and there has been little interest in
developing such an understanding. This situation has led to a
proliferation of neologisms. Security is now used with more than 30
different adjectives. See Figure 3 (Chapter 20) for a listing and
classification of these terms.
Definitions and discussions of security often privilege selected
elements or certain instruments or, worse, confuse the different
elements, adding to the bewilderment that characterizes the subject.
Stephen Walt's (1991: 212) definition of security studies as "the study
of the

 Page 12
threat, use, and control of military force,'' for example, focuses
exclusively on one instrumentforce. In a similar vein, Richard Shultz,
Roy Godson, and Ted Greenwood (1993: 2-3), in designing a
curriculum for security studies in the 1990s, state that they do not
oppose expansion of the field, yet choose to "concentrate on the
traditional and historical essence of the subject: the threat, use and
management of military force, and closely related topics." These and
other such formulations not only restrict the concept of security to one
instrument, but also ignore (or make assumptions about) crucial
elements of security, such as who or what is to be secured and what
aspects or values relating to that entity are to be secured. Further, they
encourage a narrow, technocratic approach to security. There is a clear
need to rethink the concept of security. But some of the attempts to
formulate alternative conceptions (discussed in Chapter 1) broaden the
concept indiscriminately, making it an analytically useless grab bag.
A further problem has been loose interpretation of such concepts as
collective security, collective self-defense, common security, and
cooperative security, and a tendency to stretch their meanings.

23David Dewitt (1994), for example, in his eagerness to depict

cooperative security (a Canadian-sponsored initiative) as the most
suitable concept for the Asia-Pacific region, seeks to subsume the
competitive approach to security (including balance of power and
alliances) under the label of cooperative security (which properly
connotes the pursuit of security through international arrangements
that regulate or even preclude independent national use of force).24He
also seeks to broaden this concept to encompass comprehensive
security, the primary concern of which is to indicate the breadth and
depth of what is to be secured. Although deployment of concepts in
this manner may have utility as a political project, the conceptual
stretching that ensues reduces the analytical utility of the concept of
cooperative security.

The current unsatisfactory state of affairs may be attributed, in part, to

the nature of the concept itself, which has been variously described as
elusive, ambiguous, amorphous, difficult, and essentially contested
(see, for example, Wolfers 1962c: 147-65; Buzan 1991: 7). But this is
the case with most core concepts in the social sciencespower, justice,
the state, and culture, for exampleand it has not prevented their
conceptual flowering. Security is no more difficult or contested than
these other core concepts. With sustained, rigorous, and concerted
effort, analysis and development of the concept of security should
make at least some headway. Because concepts constitute the basic
"units of thought" and in large measure inform, if not define,
discourse and theorizing, explication and elaboration of security and a
shared understanding of the concept are

 Page 13
crucial for the development of the security studies subfield.

25This book seeks to make a modest contribution to that effort.

Drawing upon the social practice of security in selected Asian
countries, as well as the ongoing debate within the academic
community, it seeks to explicate and elaborate the concept of security.

About This Book

This study has a threefold purpose. One is investigation of security
practice in sixteen Asian countries to develop an in-depth
understanding of and to explain security thinking and behavior in
those countries. The second purpose is to ascertain whether there are
common features among the various security practices and to advance
possible explanations for them. The third purpose is to contribute to
the conceptual development of security, by drawing upon the findings
of this empirical investigation and upon the ongoing debate in the
academic community. Specifically, this study explores the following
sets of questions:
1. How is security conceived and executed by the central decision
makers (CDMs) in the selected Asian countries?26Are their
security practices contested? Why? Have security practices
changed over time? If so, how and why?
2. What are the similarities and differences among security
practices in Asian countries? What accounts for them? Is there
anything distinctively Asian about security practices in Asia? If so,
to what can this be attributed?
3. Is the security thinking and behavior in Asian countries best
explained by systemic or unit-level factorsor by a combination of
both? In each case, which is more salient, material interests or
 ideational variables? Which paradigms best explain the practice of
security in Asia?
4. What are the implications of the Asian cases for conceptualizing
security? How should security be defined?
This study departs from the more common approach in international
relations of positing and testing one or more hypotheses. The intention
here is not to prove or disprove any hypothesis, but rather, on the
basis of comparative inquiry, to arrive at propositions about security
practice in Asia and to conceptualize security. The research method
and strategy have been tailored accordingly.

 Page 14
Method
As noted earlier, the debate over defining security has been conducted
primarily at an abstract level, including minimal and usually selective
reference to actual practice. Security and its pursuit are defined by
analysts in a logical-deductive manner. The assumptions and logic of
a paradigm, rather than practice, are believed to determine security
goals and behavior. Realist definitions, for example, based on the
assumption of anarchy and a certain logic of it, assert that
survivaldefined in terms of political independence and territorial
integrityis the core security objective and that self-help is the basic
principle governing state action. Those who contest such definitions
do so largely by challenging the imputed logic of anarchy, suggesting
that security can be achieved through cooperation as well as
competition, or by challenging the assumption of anarchy itself.
Although capable of providing powerful insights, the logical-
deductive approach has serious limitations.

27Political survival, for example, while important, is not always at

issue, and political independence and territorial integrity may not be
the only concerns. Survival may be defined, especially by the major
powers, in terms of national self-extension goals, such as "making the
world safe for democracy." The content of such milieu goals cannot
be ascertained by the logical-deductive method.28Further, security
behavior may be affected by unit-level attributes, such as the
normative context and domestic state structure, and these in turn will
be influenced by political-strategic culture and historical legacies. The
impact of these variableswhich may vary over time and across
statescannot be discerned and explained deductively. For example,
explanations of the differences in the security behavior of pre-and
post-World War II Japan, as well as the differences between the
security behavior of contemporary Japan and that of Germany or the
United States, have to draw heavily on the differences in those
countries' state structures and normative contexts, both of which have
been shaped by different historical legacies.29 Security behavior that
is linked to norms, identity, and domestic political structure can only
be investigated empirically in specific historical settings.

Empirical investigation may also be helpful in getting around the

problem of evaluating competing definitions of security that are based
on different assumptions. Security in the empirical-inductive approach
is not formulated a priori but is developed on the basis of comparative
study of the articulations and behavior of the CDMs.30Unless actors
are perceived as "judgmental dopes" or as self-serving manipulators
of public interest, one should accept that each, knowing a great deal
about

 Page 15
the society of which he or she is a member, is articulating the security
concerns of that society.

31Adopting this approach requires that security be framed and

evaluated in the context of a society's "mutual knowledge."32The
specific content of security is determined by the legitimate decision
makers. The task of the observer is to interpret and evaluate on the
basis of the rules of the society without imposing arbitrary rules or
definitions. Concepts, as observed by Anthony Giddens, must
necessarily draw upon social practice and are adequate only when
they master and build on notions that "are already embedded in the
contexts of use of ordinary language," including, in this case, policy
language (Giddens 1979:246-48).

Thus, while abstraction and internal coherence are important in

concept formulation, so is external relevance. Concepts and theories,
to be meaningful, must be grounded in reality and must be able to
accommodate contextual and historical variations. Artificial bounding
of a concept in the interest of theoretical elegance and analytical
utility will divorce theory and analysis from reality, making them less
useful if not irrelevant and possibly misleading. The concept,
however, must be sufficiently abstract without becoming a grab bag.
The challenge, then, is to conceptualize security in a way that is both
analytically useful and empirically relevant.
Research Strategy
To provide a common departure point and to allow for comparison
across countries, this study employs a statist approach that focuses on
the security conceptions of central decision makers. Despite its
shortcomings, the nation-state is still the dominant expression of
political community, and governments continue to be the central
actors in domestic and international politics. They are the primary
agent of security as well as the paramount problem for security. The
focus on CDMs, however, does not imply that the state is being
privileged and that competing conceptions of security are not to be
explored. On the contrary, the contributors to this study take the
position that it is important to problematize the state both as a political
community and as a legitimate actor, and to investigate contestations
of it, as well as competing conceptions of security. There are at least
three reasons for this position.
First, the nation-state, the political system, and the incumbent
government are contested entities in many countries. Identities and
ideological preferences are the focal points of contestation. In these
situations, incumbent governments may view such contestations as
threats to "national" security, and it is likely that security as
constructed by the CDMs does not encompass the concerns of some
segments of society

 Page 16
and may even threaten their security. Instead of being viewed as a
provider, the incumbent government in such situations could be
perceived as the principal source of insecurity for those groups.
Security in such countries will be highly contested, making it
imperative that competing conceptions be explored.
Second, even where the state is not politically contested, it may be
unable to provide equal security for all its citizens or may not have a
monopoly over the security function. In these situations, other entities
at the individual, group, societal, regional, and global levels may well
become the referents or providers with regard to one or more aspects
of security. Consequently, the construction of security by all such
entities requires examination.
Third, contestations make explicit the assumptions and interests of the
various agents, thereby providing an important focus for research on
the meaning of security. To keep the exercise manageable, however,
discussion of competing conceptions will be limited to those that bear
upon and affect the security behavior of CDMs.
As it examines practices of security, the inquiry addresses four
questions. First, who or which entity is to be secured? That entity is
the referent of security. Second, what core values or aspects
associated with the referent must be protected or enhanced to ensure
its security? The concern here is with the goals and values that
decision makers of the community in question consider vital and seek
to protect under the label of security. Third, what are the types of
threats-political, military, sociocultural, economic, or
environmentalagainst which these core values have to be protected?
And what is the nature of the security problem in each case? Is the
security problem zero-sum and distributional (relative gains) in
nature, or is it one of political market failure?
33The second and third questions may be grouped under the heading
of scope or domain. The fourth and final question is, How is security
to be achieved? Is the approach to security (that is, coping strategies)
competitive, cooperative, designed to build community, or some
combination of them? These four key interrelated elementsreferent,
core values, threats and nature of the security problem, and approach
to securityconstitute the structure of security. They also constitute the
dominant terms of security discourse and inform the investigations in
this study (see Table 1).

It is possible to identify a hierarchy among these four elements. The

referent is fundamental. It has a crucial bearing in determining both
the level of analysis and the values to be protected. Political autonomy
and territorial integrity, for example, are critical values when the state
is the referent, but may be less important for referents at the
individual, group,

 Page 17
TABLE 1
Structure and Terms of Security Discourse
Element of Security Illustration
Referent (Who?) Communal, religious, or other group, society, regime,
nation-state, state, regional community, world/planet
Scope/Domain(What?) Core Political independence and territorial integrity; social
Values harmony, internal order, political stability, national
unity; sociocultural essence of nation; economic
security(safeguarding prosperity, promoting
economic growth and modernization, international
competitiveness, distributive justice, etc.); safe
environment
Types Political, military, economic, sociocultural,
of environmental
Threats
Nature Zero-sum, distributional, political, market failure
of
Problem
Approach (How?) Competitive (self-help), cooperative security;
community security

or global level. These values and the type and nature of threats will in turn
influence the coping strategies and instruments deployed to achieve
security. Although these elements can be separated for analytical
purposes, in theory as well as in practice they are interconnected and must
be considered together, particularly in conceptual discussions of security.
A meaningful discussion of the four elements of security also requires
investigation of the domestic and international political environment. That
environment will have a significant, if not defining, impact on the
collective and national identity of states, as well as on the sources of
insecurity, the nature of the security problems, the types of threats, and
the approaches adopted. Discussions of security thus should be embedded
in the general theoretical discourse on the nature of domestic



 Page 18
and international politics.

34According to Oran Young, "only in this way can security studies

escape static assumptions of international [and domestic] society and
avoid devolving into a technocratic exercise."35The impact of the
political environment is mediated, however, by its interpretation by
the CDMs. The beliefs they hold set "bounds within which
interpretations are accepted or rejected" (Vertzberger 1990: 123; see
also Goldstein and Keohane 1993). Such beliefs play a crucial role in
diagnosis and policy prescription and may have a significant impact
on security behavior. Thus, the cultural-institutional context in which
CDMs operate must be investigated as well (Katzenstein 1995).

To discern how security is constructed and practiced by CDMs, it is

useful to begin with formal articulations in public documents and
pronouncements, as well as interviews with political leaders and
officials. When making use of such sources, however, one must be
careful to distinguish between rhetoric and actual behavior,
particularly in the priority ranking of referents, core values, and
approaches. This is best done through the investigation of hard cases,
wherein the actors must make choices between competing referents,
values, and approaches. It is essential, therefore, to go beyond formal
articulation to explore what CDMs actually dothat is, how they
operationalize securityand assess whether their behavior is in keeping
with formal articulations and is consistent over time.
To explain security practice, two related questions must be explored.
First, Is the security behavior of the CDMs driven by systemic or unit-
level considerations, or by a combination of them? (And if by a
combination, how are the different levels linked?) Second, Which
factorsmaterial or ideationalare more salient in explicating behavior?
The first question focuses on the explanatory level, whereas the
second focuses on the explanatory variable. Ideational and material
factors are relevant to both systemic and unit-level explanations. The
relevant theories and their principal claims are sketched out here; for a
further discussion, see Chapter 1.
There are four system-level theories that attempt to explain
international politics and, by implication, state behavior. Of these,
neorealism and constructivism may be viewed as the two main
contending theories; neoliberalism and commercial liberalism as
falling between them. Based on anarchy as the ordering principle of
the international system, neorealism asserts that international politics
is competitive and conflictual; that state survival is problematic and
the highest end of states; and that self-help is the basic principle of
action (Waltz 1979). Neorealism is skeptical of cooperative security
strategies. Although it accepts that state behavior may be conditioned
by attributes and interaction at the unit level, it

 Page 19
privileges the international material structure in explaining state
behavior. State behavior is seen as a set of rational responses to the
pressures created by the international material structureprincipally
changes in the distribution of power. The key predictions of
neorealism are that states will engage in balancing and that because of
the competitive nature of the system, states will be driven to become
like units and to behave in a similar manner.
The acultural and ahistorical bases of neorealism and its claim to
universality are challenged by constructivism. This theory contests the
imputed logic of anarchy as well as the privileging of material
capabilities. It argues that the structure of the international system is
intersubjectively constituted. Anarchy is what states make of it
(Wendt 1992). The neorealist logic of anarchy, in this view, is socially
constructed and can be transformed. John Ruggie's (1983) key insight
that international anarchy need not preclude functional differentiation
of units is developed to substantiate this argument and to make the
case that different units can coexist in anarchy. Further,
constructivism posits that the international structure is social,
comprising shared knowledge, material capabilities, and state
practices (Wendt 1995: 73). Material capabilities in and of themselves
have no meaning. Their meaning is derived instead from shared
knowledge. Shared knowledge, often principles and norms, which
may be constitutive or regulatory, shape state identities and interests
as well as interstate normative structures (Jepperson, Wendt,
Katzenstein, 1996). Constructivism holds that state practices and
structure are mutually constitutive (see Giddens 1979). It is claimed
that constructivism can at least equal, if not better, neorealism in
explaining international politics and state behavior.
Neoliberalism accepts the key premises of neorealism. Its main
contention is directed at the neorealist claim that cooperation is
difficult to sustain and that institutions matter only on the margins.
Neoliberalism posits that a higher degree of cooperation is possible
under anarchy than is allowed for in neorealism and that institutions
can alter conceptions of self-interest, reduce uncertainty, and stabilize
expectations (Keohane 1984). State behavior can be constrained
through the operation of rules. Institutions can facilitate peaceful
change and have done so.
Commercial liberalism, for its part, contends that growing trade and
economic interdependence will minimize the negative effects of
anarchy and gradually transform the nature of international politics
and international relations, moving it in the direction of a "trading
world." In this world, considerations of interdependence, rather than
insecurity born of anarchy, affect the international disposition and
behavior of states (Rosecrance 1986).

 Page 20
Neoliberalism and commercial liberalism can be incorporated into a
constructivist explanation. In the view of constructivists, neorealism
also can be explained as a social construction. Neorealists, of course,
would dispute such a claim. If systemic considerations are deemed
critical in explaining state security behavior, then it is necessary to
explore which of these competing theories has the most power in
explaining the security practice of Asian states.
It is generally recognized that unit-level and domestic factors play an
important role in conditioning the international behavior of states and
must therefore be taken into account in any attempt to explain state
behavior. The case of the Soviet Union, where internal developments
(leading eventually to its collapse) had dramatic implications for its
international behavior, is frequently cited in support of the proposition
that internal factors must be taken into account in explaining the
security behavior of states (for example, see Kolodziej 1992a, 1992b).
Waltz has all along accepted that state behavior is rooted in a
conjunction of external and internal factors (1959, 1979, 1986), and
Robert Keohane has stated that the "next major step forward in
understanding international cooperation will have to incorporate
domestic politics fully into the analysisnot on a mere ad hoc basis but
systematically" (1989: 30).
The problem is that a plethora of unit-level theories have been
deployed to explain state behavior, all of them emphasizing the
importance of unit-level and domestic factors. Unfortunately, no
attempt has been made to link those factors in any systematic fashion.
Richard Rosecrance and Arthur Stein (1993: 5), for example, argue
that domestic bases "play an important, indeed a pivotal, role in the
selection of grand strategy and, therefore, in the prospects for
international cooperation and conflict." Yet they do not seek to
provide a grand theory of domestic factors, but instead simply list
some: domestic groups, social ideas, the character of constitutions,
economic constraints, historical social tendencies, and domestic
political pressure groups. Similarly, it is beyond the scope of this book
to formulate an overarching theory of unit-level variables. Instead, the
study is limited to four sets of theories and factors that appear most
relevant: realpolitik or political realism, which emphasizes raison
d'être and material strength; domestic constructivism, which
emphasizes ideas, norms, history, and culture; regime type theories
that link state behavior to the type of political system or the dominant
functional imperative of the state; and state-society interaction
focused on national identity and regime survival.
Realpolitik, the basis for neorealism, resembles it in some ways but
differs from it in others. The key differences lie in the level and
concerns of analysis. Neorealism is essentially a theory of
international politics,

 Page 21
but one that can be used to explain the behavior of states in terms of
systemic (structural) constraints.

36Realpolitik, on the other hand, is a theory of foreign policy that

seeks to explain the international behavior of states deploying a power
rationale. The key element of political realism is its assumption that
CDMs think and act in terms of interest defined as power, and this
assumption is claimed to be universally valid (Morgenthau 1978: 5,
8). National interests rather than ideas dominate the behavior of
CDMs, although the content of such interests will be informed by the
political and cultural contexts of the particular historical period. The
ultimate goals of states may vary (freedom, security, prosperity), but
power, as the means to achieve them, is always the immediate goal.
Consequently, as Morgenthau (1978: 27-92) argues, states will
struggle for power to preserve the status quo (that is, to maintain the
present distribution of power), to engage in imperialism (to seek a
favorable change in the distribution of power), or to pursue a policy of
prestige (to demonstrate or increase its own power). This aspiration to
power necessarily leads to balancing behavior. Although the elements
of power are defined broadly, military power is privileged because it
is believed to be the ultima ratio in international politics (Morgenthau
1978: 31; Carr 1964: 109). War is posited as a common instrument of
policy among states actively engaged in international politics,
although the advent of nuclear weapons has radically transformed this
situation. For the states that possess nuclear weapons, diplomacy has a
crucial role in creating and maintaining new institutions for the pursuit
of common security.

Constructivism, at the domestic level as at the international level,

seeks to explain state behavior by drawing upon the power of ideas
and norms. Similarly, historical experiences, such as colonialism, and
politically defining moments, such as national liberation and dramatic
political change through revolutionary struggle, can have lasting
impact on state identity, interests, and behavior.37Like ideas, they can
influence the state's interpretation of the world, shape policy agendas,
and affect outcomes. Strategic culture, a subset of ideas relating more
specifically to the use of force, has also been deployed to explain state
behavior. The argument is that strategic choices of states are
conditioned by historical experiences and historically rooted strategic
preferences, rather than being determined by changes in the objective
strategic environment (Johnston 1995).
Concerning the link between regime type and international behavior,
some analysts have claimed that a particular type of regime, the liberal
democracy, is less prone to war than others (Rummel 1983) and that
liberal democracies will not go to war with each other (Doyle 1989;

 Page 22
Russett 1993). In this view, authoritarian leaders will be more likely
to resort to aggressive international behavior. Others have argued that
the transitional nature of certain regimes, rather than regime type, is
the critical factor in explaining the propensity of states to go to war.
Edward Mansfield and Jack Snyder argue that during the transitional
phase of democratization, states become ''more aggressive and war
prone, and they do fight wars with democratic states" (1995: 5). Still
others, among them Stanislav Andreski (1980: 3), argue that the
emergence and existence of military dictatorships "have little
connection with...the waging, or preparation, for war" and that
military dictators "have been notably pacific in external relations."
The impact of regime transitions and the international behavior of
authoritarian regimes are particularly relevant in Asia, which is still
home to several authoritarian governments and where several
countries are undergoing major economic and political changes.
The functional imperative theory rests on a distinction between
political-military states and trading states. Unlike political-military
states, it is argued, trading states "accept equality of status on the basis
of differentiation in functions. Their objectives...do not require
preventing other states from achieving such goals" (Rosecrance 1986:
28). Considerations of interdependence, and not insecurity born of
anarchy, affect the disposition and behavior of states. Although states
may try to improve their relative positions, they do so in the context of
interdependence. Cooperation, rather than competition and conflict, is
the more rational approach to security in these circumstances.
Chalmers Johnson introduces the idea of the capitalist developmental
state, which, like the mercantilist state, is imperial in its international
behavior (Johnson 1993: 222-23). There are many other types of
statescorporatist, nationalist, revolutionary, bureaucratic-
authoritarianwith varying dispositions and behaviors. The objective
here, however, is not to determine the validity of these various claims
but rather to assess whether and how regime type and functional
imperative can explain the security behavior of Asian countries.
When national identity and regime survival are at stake, explanatory
power shifts to domestic politics, and specifically to the interaction of
state and society. Where nation and state are not coterminous, and if
there is contestation over the constitution and identity of the political
community, such conflict (usually along ethnic or religious lines),
depending on its severity, may have a deep impact on the domestic
and international behavior of the CDMs. Similarly, security thinking
and behavior may be driven by concerns of regime survival in
countries where the legitimacy of the political system and the
incumbent power

 Page 23
holders is at issue. In both these situations, the identity and legitimacy
of the security referent are likely to be the object of contestation and a
principal source of the state's security problem. Such contestation is
also likely to inform the international behavior of CDMs in the
affected states. The kinds of international regimes in which
membership is sought and the alliances and alignments that are
entered into, for example, may be explained with reference to the
identity and survival concerns of the incumbent governments (David
1991; Acharya 1992a). Given that nation-states are imagined
communities (Anderson 1992) and that ideological preferences are
constructed, the impact of these variables on security thinking and
behavior can be folded into a constructivist explanation.
It may be the case that several of the factors discussed here are at
work simultaneously. It then becomes necessary to trace their
interconnections as well as to disentangle and assess the significance
of each factor. Similarly, systemic and unit-level factors may operate
simultaneously, so that here too the interactions and salience of each
level and factor will have to be considered. If structural-materialist
theories emerge dominant in explaining Asian security behavior, then
Asian security practice cannot be considered distinct. To lay claim to
distinctiveness, at a minimum, constructivism and nonmaterial unit-
level theories would have to be more pertinent in explaining Asian
security practice. If this is the case, Asian practice will then have to be
compared with those in other regions to determine whether it is indeed
distinctive.
The method of research outlined here illuminated for the authors what
areas needed to be investigated and suggested how some of those
issues might be explored. The authors, however, had wide latitude to
expand and enrich this core approach in a manner they considered
appropriate to their respective countries.
Structure of the Book
The study is organized in three parts. Part I critically reviews and
appraises the debate on defining security, and provides a historical
overview of international politics in Asia. It sets the context for the
country-specific chapters that follow. Part II investigates practices of
security in sixteen Asian countries. The countries were selected and
grouped on the basis of security interdependence. Political, economic,
and strategic weight, as well as each country's significance for
regional security, also influenced the composition of the clusters.
Thus, China, India, and Japan constitute one cluster. The other
countries were grouped on a subregional basis: Northeast Asia (North
Korea, South Korea, Taiwan), continental Southeast Asia (Thailand,
Vietnam, Burma),

 Page 24
maritime Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the
Philippines), and South Asia (Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka).
Using a common framework, the country chapters seek to discern and
explain the construction of security as well as its contestation and
changes over time. The common framework ensures that the questions
raised are examined in a systematic and substantive manner, and it
facilitates comparison. Based on the findings of the country studies
and drawing on other published works, Part III seeks to compare the
national practices, with a view to identifying and explaining key
characteristics of Asian practice of security. It also attempts to
conceptualize security on the basis of the Asian experiences.

 Page 25

PART I
CONCEPTUAL AND HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

 Page 27

1
Rethinking Security
A Critical Review and Appraisal of the Debate
Muthiah Alagappa
The main focus of security studies... is the phenomenon of war....
Accordingly security studies may be defined as the study of the threat, use,
and
control of military force
STEPHEN M. WALT, 1991
It is important to confine the concept of security to physical safety from
deliberate physical harm inflicted internationally, i.e., across national
boundaries.
PATRICK MORGAN, 1992
[Security is] primarily about the fate of human collectivities... about the
pursuit of freedom from threat. [The] bottom line is about survival, but it also
includes a substantial range of concerns about the conditions of existence....
Security... is affected by factors in five major sectors: military, political,
economic,
societal, and environmental.
BARRY BUZAN, 1991
The key concept in talking about security is emancipation. Emancipation
means
freeing people from those constraints that stop them carrying out what freely
they would
choose to do, of which war, poverty, oppression and poor education are a few.
KEN BOOTH, 1991

 Page 28
Security needs to encompass the interests of the people rather than just states,
in
gaining access to food, shelter, basic human rights, health care, and the
environ-
mental conditions that allow these things to be provided into the long-term
future.
SIMON DALBY, 1992
I do not disagree... that these problems are serious and should be of concern
to
us all. What I disagree [with] is that all of these policy problems (domestic,
regional, and international) should be subsumed under security studies. There
is
no conceptual thread... that holds them all together except that they are
"problems. "
ROBERT H. DORFF, 1994

Security is a sharply contested concept, as the epigraphs to this

chapter illustrate. Contestation encompasses all four of its constituent
elements: the referent, the composition of core values, the type and
nature of threats, and the approach to security. Stephen Walt and
Patrick Morgan take it for granted that the state is the referent of
security, but Ken Booth and Simon Dalby argue that the referent
should be people instead. For Barry Buzan, the referent is human
collectivities, and the specific referent varies with the level of
analysis. At the international level, he posits the state and society as
the referents of security. Morgan, Walt, and Robert Dorff would limit
security to the international level and focus on deliberate threats
(primarily, if not exclusively, of a military nature) to physical safety.
Booth and Dalby view security as encompassing all issues (at the
domestic, international, and global levels) that affect the emancipation
or interests of the people. Concerning threats to security and how
security is to be achieved, Walt, Morgan, and Dorff appear to
emphasize international competition and conflict, positing military
force as both the principal threat and the principal means to achieve
security. Booth and Dalby would go beyond the military threat to
encompass a wide range of threats and dangers affecting the
conditions of existence. According to Buzan, the security of human
collectivities, which includes not only survival but also a range of
conditions of existence, is affected by military, political, economic,
societal, and environmental factors. The articulations of Walt,
Morgan, and Dorff are essentially in the realist tradition. Buzan's
position has its roots in neorealism but permits variations in the
referent and broadens the scope of security. The articulations of Booth
and Dalby are more in the liberal tradition.

 Page 29
These differences point to the lack of a shared understanding of the
meaning of "security," which has led to a debate among analysts over
rethinking the concept of security. Often this debate is characterized
as one between the advocates of "limited" (or "bounded") and "broad''
(or "expanded") definitions of security. But that characterization is
inadequate, for it draws attention only to the differences over the
scope (the second and third elements) of the concept and misses the
disagreements over the referent and approaches to security. In fact,
rethinking security must begin with the referent, which is the
fundamental element and which has consequences for the other three
elements of security as well as for the nature of the domestic and
international environment.
This chapter critically reviews and appraises the key features of the
debate over the rethinking of security, with a view to developing some
guidelines for conceptualizing security, a task that is undertaken in
Chapter 20. The review and appraisal of the competing conceptions of
security are organized under the headings of referent, scope, approach,
and explanation of security. Each section begins with an elaboration
of the core assumptions and claims of realism, which was and
continues to be the hegemonic discourse on international politics.
Realism, as the term is used here, comprises political realism and
especially its prominent contemporary version, neorealism.

1Security is the central concern and the home turf of neorealism; most
of those who argue against any substantial rethinking of security are
neorealists. Neorealism is also the starting point for some competing
expositions of security2and the point of comparison and departure for
others. Elaboration of the neorealist claims is followed in each section
by a critique of them and a discussion of the core assumptions, claims,
and problems associated with alternative conceptions. The chapter
concludes with the observation that, although it continues to be
relevant, the neorealist articulation is inadequate, and that security
must be conceptualized to go beyond it. Some guidelines for the
conceptualization of security are also identified. We begin with a
review of the debate over the security referent.

Referent of Security: State or People?

The state is the dominant form of political organization (Gilpin 1981:
116-23). Internally, it defines and protects the life, liberty, and
property of individuals and groups through the creation of political
and socioeconomic order. Externally, it protects the rights of its
citizens from the harmful actions of other states and nonstate entities.
The state also fulfills a crucial identity function and a welfare role that
has progressively become more significant. The sovereign state is
deemed to separate the

 Page 30
inside from outside, order from struggle, and "us" from "them." In
essence, it represents an "in group" with a defined territory and
ultimate authority. In the realist view, despite the proliferation of other
actors and the erosion of its authority in several domains, the state will
continue to be the principal actor in the domestic and international
arenas until other actors rival and surpass it (Waltz 1979: 85; Gilpin
1981: 116-23; Thompson and Krasner 1989). For as long as the state
remains the primary political community and actor, it will also be the
primary agent and provider of, and therefore the referent of security.
This realist claim has been challenged on at least three counts. One is
the claim that the capacity of the state to discharge its primary
functions of identity, physical security, material welfare, and habitable
environment is declining (James Rosenau 1989, Ken Booth 1991a,
1991b). The general argument here is that the state is too large to
satisfy human needs and too small to cope with problems that are
increasingly regional and global in nature. People have multiple and
overlapping identities, and the claim of the state in this respect is
narrowing. In addition to national identity, regional and local
identities are also becoming important. Because the strategy of
nuclear deterrence risks the lives of the very people the state is
supposed to protect, the state is no longer seen as an effective provider
of external defense. International specialization and the development
of a global economy and transnational networks limit the autonomy of
the state and thereby diminish its role and effectiveness in discharging
its socioeconomic welfare function. Environmental problems are
mostly global in scope and cannot be addressed at the level of the
state. Thus, although it will not disappear, the state has become much
less relevant. It now has to share authority with other actors; it no
longer provides an effective handle to understand the agendas of
politics, economics, defense, and environment, which are increasingly
set by popular social movements and not by governments.
A second argument is based on a suspicion of the state or even
outright hostility to it. This argument posits the state as an oppressor
and a producer of insecurity. It is in part rooted in classical liberalism
(which views civil society as the fount of all virtues and government
as a necessary evil that must be limited and checked) and Marxism
(which views the state as the agent of a certain class), both of which,
for different reasons, are society centered and depict government as
self-serving and predisposed toward international conflict.
Domestically, the rhetoric of "national" security, according to this
argument, may be deployed by governments to maintain a certain
identity and impose an order that privileges some segments while
threatening others (Dalby 1992). The

 Page 31
poor, women, minorities, and children are often victims of structural
violence. Instead of providing security, states can and in many cases
do threaten the security of some of their citizens. For dissidents, so-
called national security becomes a threat to their own individual and
group security. In such situations there is usually more than one
referent of security, often competing and at times irreconcilable. It
becomes crucial to distinguish between individual, group, and national
security and to identify the tensions among them.
A final argument holds that the state must be viewed as a means to
protect the life and liberty of people and to advance their material
wellbeing, and not as an end in itself. Protection of people, and not of
the state, should therefore be the ultimate goal of security (Booth
1991a; Dalby 1992). Making the state the referent can lead to abuse,
particularly in countries where the legitimacy of the nation-state,
regime, or government is contested. For these reasons, people rather
than the state should be the referent of security. A variant of this
argument claims that the state is not the only referent: there are others,
such as society and humanity, that may be more salient in certain
situations and domains.
These arguments, particularly the one that holds that security is about
people, have considerable merit. Political institutions like the nation-
state and government gain their legitimacy by fulfilling the safety,
identity, and welfare needs of people. Without the consent and support
of people, they have no legitimacy. Similarly, unless occupied or
claimed by a group of people, territory in itself has no value. Threats
make sense only in terms of the physical and moral injury they can
inflict upon people and their livelihood. A hole in the ozone layer is of
concern because of the harm it can cause people. This is belaboring
the obvious, but the point must be firmly registered that security is
fundamentally about people. All too often political constructs become
reified in security analysis and policy, obscuring the fact that they are
a means and not an end. Consequently, "the people" are relegated to
a means and not an end. Consequently, "the people" are relegated to
the status of one among several elements of the stateon a par with
other elements, such as territoryor worse, put at risk or sacrificed in
the pursuit of "national" interest.

3Putting people at the center of security analysis will help to keep

ends and means in perspective and to highlight contradictions, such as
the strategy of nuclear deterrence.

As a concept and referent, however, "the people" is just as ambiguous

and diverse as "the state," if not even more so. Does "the people"
mean the whole of humankind, or some part of it? If the latter, then on
what basis do the people define themselves? Who defines their
interests? How are interests aggregated? Who speaks for the people?
Clearly, some form of political organization is required. And in this
regard, despite its

 Page 32
many shortcomings, the state is still the most relevant object of
political identity and allegiance and the most effective agent of the
security and welfare functions. Humankind is too vast for us to easily
comprehend and identify with; the nation-stateeven though it may be
imagined (Anderson 1991)is more concrete. It is a useful mediation
between the local and global levels. Thus, despite the trend toward an
increasingly globalized world, the state will remain of central
importance (Calhoun 1994).
The relevance and effectiveness of the state as a political community
has been questioned periodically, and its "withering away" has been
forecast for about the last hundred years. But, as noted by David
Strang (1991), states are robust organizations that have edged out
many competitors. International social practice naturalizes this
principle, leading analysts such as Robert Jackson and Carl Rosberg
(1982) to argue that there is strong world cultural support for the
principle and practice of sovereign statehood. Stephen Krasner (1995-
96: 123) points out that assertions claiming a basic transformation of
the international system because "sovereignty seems so much at risk"
are not well founded. It appears that the state will continue to be the
principal form of political organization and the principal actor in the
domestic and international realms. This is not to proclaim an eternal
life for the state. It may be, as Ruggie (1993c) has suggested, that the
activities of the contemporary "medieval trade fair" will challenge and
eventually bring about the demise of the state; but, as he himself
notes, for the foreseeable future states will continue to be "the most
powerful form of political organization."

4Even in Western Europe, where integration is most advanced and

where it has to share authority with other regional, local, and non-
governmental actors, the state continues to be resilient (Taylor 1991;
Hoffmann 1991).5
In some developing countries, particularly in Asia, identification of
the people with the state and state capabilities (including penetration,
extraction, appropriation, and application) has strengthened.6The
existence of secessionist movements, though reflective of the
weakness of the constitution of specific countries, is not indicative of
the obsolescence of the idea of the nation-state as the basis of political
community. On the contrary, such movements are a vindication of its
continued vitality. The goal of the secessionist movements is to create
new nation-states in which the fit between ethnic or religious nation
and state is closer and in which the movement's ethnic or religious
group becomes the Staatsvolk, the dominant ethnic group that controls
state power.
There is as yet no political alternative to the state. As noted by Walker
(1990), "the state" is a political category in a way that "the world,"
"the

 Page 33
planet," the "globe," or "humanity" is not. Because the meaning of
security is tied to historically specific forms of political community
and because "other forms of political community have been rendered
unthinkable," the understanding of security continues to involve
primarily the concerns of state security (Walker 1990: 5-6). This is an
elementary point that is missed by some critics of the state.
To make the case for the continued relevance of the state as the basis
for political community, however, is not the same as to accept the
state as the sole referent or to equate security with national security.
As noted earlier, the state suffers limitations as a provider of security
and, in some cases, its legitimacy may be contested. In the latter
situation, the state could well be a threat to the security of some
segments of its body politic. Even when the state is not contested,
security as defined by the government may differ from the security of
the society or of groups within it.

7Therefore, the state should not be uncritically accepted as the sole

referent of security.

Further, states in the real world are not all like units, varying only in
terms of power capabilities, as is claimed by realists. They vary
widely on many other counts as well, including the capacity for self-
government, monopoly over the legitimate use of force and internal
pacification, cohesiveness as a political community, capacity for
international interaction, and participation in the regional and global
economies. Georg Sorenson (forthcoming) posits that the international
system is populated by three types of states: the postcolonial, modern,
and postmodern. The security referent and the sources of insecurity
will vary by type of state. In states closer to the postcolonial ideal
typein most of sub-Saharan Africa and the former Soviet states, and in
some parts of Asia and Latin Americathe state may not command the
loyalty of all people living within "national" territorial boundaries.
Some segments may view the state as a threat to their survival and
well-being. In this situation alternative security referentsbased on
religious, ethnic, or economic considerationsare likely to emerge. In
states closer to the postmodern ideal typein Western Europestate
identity will be informed and tempered by the larger regional identity,
and society's interests may differ from those of the state (Waever et al.
1993; Waever 1995). In this situation a regional entity, such as the
European Union, and other nonstate entities, such as society, may
become additional security referents.
Consequently, although still dominant, "states form a part of a
complex network of authority patterns pertaining to different levels of
governance" and coexist with a host of other important actors at the
subnational, regional, and global levels (Holm and Sorenson 1995:
189). For several reasons, any one or more of the units at these levels
can

 Page 34
become the referent of security in both the postcolonial and
postmodern states. The relationships among these different referents
and the priorities accorded to them will vary with the context and
cannot be predetermined. The referent of security may also change
over time and therefore cannot be assumed. Instead, it must be
problematized and investigated.
Scope of Security: Internal or International?
Narrow or Broad?
The debate over the scope of security has several dimensions. We
address three of them in this section. First, should security be defined
to include the intrastate level? Second, are the "traditional" concern of
security with international survival and the emphasis on military
power still relevant? And third, should the scope of security be
expanded to include problems and threats in economic,
environmental, demographic, sociocultural, and other
nonconventional sectors?
Intrastate Security
Internal security is not a focus of realist theories. Neorealists, though
aware of the prevalence and intensity of violence at the domestic
level, build on the key assumption of a unitary (coherent and
cohesive) sovereign state that acts rationally. This assumption is
justified on the basis that there is "an effective government [that] has a
monopoly on the legitimate use of force" and that the national system
is therefore not one of self-help (Waltz 1979: 102-4). National
politics, characterized as a realm "of authority, of administration, and
of law" (Waltz 1979: 113), is sharply differentiated from the realm of
international politics, which is characterized in Hobbesian terms. The
assumption of unitary, cohesive, sovereign state by definition
excludes consideration of intrastate security. To the extent that the
intrastate level figures in realist analysis, the concern is with how
intrastate level figures in realist analysis, the concern is with how
variables at that level (such as nationalism and revolution) affect the
international behavior of states.

Some analysts have challenged the binary distinction between national

and international politics (Milner 1993: 153-62). Stephen Krasner
(1995-96) has argued that sovereignty (the hook for the binary
distinction) is better viewed as a convention or reference point than as
an analytic assumption. Even if a sharp distinction is necessary for the
purpose of constructing a theory of international politics, it should not
be the basis for security analysis. The state should not necessarily be
treated as a cohesive and legitimate actor. As noted earlier, states vary
widely in terms of the attributes of a modern nation-state. In a large

 Page 35
number of countries, including some major ones such as Russia,
China and India, the very constitution of the state is problematic. Not
all peoples living within existing national boundaries identify with the
state as constituted, and governments do not necessarily have
monopoly over the legitimate use of force. Thus, the state is not in all
cases the agent and provider of security. For some inhabitants the state
may well be the primary source of insecurity.
Governments in many such countries, for their part, are confronted
with internal challenges to the integrity of national territory and
political institutions that, in some respects, are far more severe than
external ones. These challenges are labeled and addressed by these
groups and governments as concerns of group or national security.
Some internal conflicts have significant international ramifications
and fuse with international conflicts, blurring the distinction between
domestic and international politics. In some cases the domestic realm
may be as Hobbesian as the international realm, if not more so. The
term failed states has been coined to describe such states. These states
present security problemsconflict and war, genocide, mass exodus of
refugees, external intervention and rivalrynot only for their own
people but also for neighboring states and the international
community. Treating the state as a unitary actor and the domestic
realm as one of authority, law, and order closes off these crucial
dimensions and ignores issues that may affect group, national, and
international security.
The intrastate security problematic has been addressed by analysts
studying the security of developing countries (Buzan 1983, chaps. 1-
3; Thomas 1987; Alagappa 1987a; Azar and Moon 1988; Job 1992a;
Ayoob 1995).

9Some parts of the problematic have also been addressed by analysts

interested in ethnic identity and conflicts (Horowitz 1985; Smith
1986, 1991; Montville 1990; Romanucci-Ross and De Vos 1995).
With the rise in the number and intensity of ethnoreligious conflicts in
post-Cold War Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Republics, and
Africa, the causes and consequences of internal (especially ethnic)
conflicts have commanded the attention of a broader spectrum of
analysts. Some have sought to explain internal conflicts in terms of
the realist theory: imperial collapse leading to a situation of anarchy,
the consequent concern with survival and the struggle for power, and
the resulting internal security dilemma (Posen 1993). Others have
sought to explain internal conflicts in terms of underlying and
proximate causes influenced by structural, political, economic or
social, and cultural or perceptual factors. Of the proximate causes,
"bad leaders" are identified as "the biggest problem" (Brown 1996:
575). The literature on the causes of internal conflict, especially ethnic
conflict, is too vast and too diverse to

 Page 36
be classified and subjected here to systematic appraisal. Instead, we
limit our discussion to three key, interrelated issuesnational identity
(the ideational basis for delineating political community as well as the
political organization of that community), political legitimacy or the
title to rule, and distributive justicethat in large part have been the
source of internal conflicts.
Though national identity has several components,

10two are important from the perspective of this study: the identity of
the nation (the nation has become the accepted basis for political
community) and the political ideology of the state.11 The identity of
the nation defines the basis for the collective self as well as the
national purpose, heritage, symbols, and character, whereas the
political-legal organizing ideology of the state (democratic, socialist,
secular, theocratic, and so on) defines the structure of political
domination. Together theythe identity of the nation and the identity of
the stateestablish a hierarchy among the political, sociocultural, and
economic beliefs of the state and order the positions and worth of
individuals and groups in society (Verdery 1993: 40; Smith 1991: 17).
They assign "subject positions in the modern state" and "[legitimate]
numerous social actions and movements" (Verdery 1993: 38).
Internationally, national identity distinguishes the nation-state in
question from the rest of the international community, with significant
consequences for its international orientation and its definition of
national interest. National identity is a powerful symbol and basis for
classification that commands deep passion, extending to the sacrifice
of lives. It is, however, not a given. National identity is a conscious
construction, and the process of identity creation has in some cases
been productive of intense conflict.

The second issuetitle to rulecan be an object of contention because of

ideational and material considerations. The ideational component
relates to contestation over the normative framework for acquiring
and exercising political power. Such conflict, when it exists, will be
over the "correct" organizing ideologycommunism, authoritarianism,
or democracyand here convictions can run deep. In situations where
the exercise of state power is not rooted in moral authority, the
legitimacy of the regime, as well as that of the incumbent government,
is likely to be contested by rival claimants to power. Without accepted
mechanisms and procedures to manage them, such challenges are
likely to translate into extralegal and violent means, such as coups
d'état, rebellion, and revolution. The material component relates to the
actual control and exercise of state power. Here the conflict may be
one of a pure struggle for power among competing elites. The two
components are intimately connected, but one cannot always be
reduced to the other. Similarly,

 Page 37
although identity may be deployed in the service of elite competition
for power, such mobilization is conditional upon the projected identity
having appeal in the target group. In other words, it must have a
historybe built up over time and space. Identity cannot be
manufactured at will, although it can be manipulated.
Finally, conflict may issue from grievances over distributive justice.
Socioeconomic grievances can fuel ethnic, religious, and caste strife
and peasant rebellions or protests and strikes by farmers and industrial
workers. Still, their consequences are likely to be limited unless they
feed into the conflicts over political identity or legitimacy. Often there
is an overlap. Less developed regions provide fertile ground for the
development and support of separatist movements or political
organizations that challenge the legitimacy of incumbent governments
on the basis of competing ideologies or promises of better
performance.
These issuesidentity, legitimacy, and distributive justiceare not always
of concern, and even when they are, they need not always lead to
violent conflict. Hence it is important to investigate why, how, and
under what circumstances these issues become of concern and when
they can lead to violent conflict. In the case of identity concerns
rooted in ethnic considerations, for example, it is necessary to
investigate why, how, and when group differentiation (the idea as well
as act of political imagination) occurs, what alienations and
resentments trigger and sustain ethnic tensions, and what conditions
permit and impel the resort to violence.

12

Challenges rooted in the problem of national identity affect the

political and territorial integrity of the state. In the former Yugoslavia,
for example, war conducted in the name of ethnic solidarity has
destroyed the state and resulted in hundreds of thousands of casualties
and millions of refugees. At present, ethnic conflicts are challenging
the territorial integrity of many states. Challenges rooted in the
legitimacy problem and socioeconomic grievances may affect the
integrity of political institutions as well as law and order and, more
generally, political stability. The international behavior of countries
thus affected and their conception of national security are heavily
influenced by tensions and conflicts at the intrastate level. But the
sharp distinction between domestic and international politics, and the
focus on insecurity issuing from international anarchy, divert attention
from the security problems at the domestic level. With a few
exceptions, domestic issues have been viewed as peripheral concerns
and excluded from mainstream security analysis. Mainstream analysts
maintain that the proper concern of security studies is international
security (Morgan 1992). A further justification for this exclusion rests
on the claim that the nature of the

 Page 38
problems (identity, legitimacy, socioeconomic grievances) and the
expertise required to address them are radically different for domestic
than for international security problems. Such arguments, as will be
shown later, are not tenable. Although it is important to distinguish
between the problems of different groups of statesa process in accord
with the rationale underlying this studyit is equally important not to
exclude by definition the security concerns of a very large number of
countries from the general conception of security and treat them as
peripheral or marginal. Moreover, developed countriesthe United
Kingdom, for exampleare not totally immune to internal security
challenges. In rethinking the national security of the United States,
Peter Peterson (1992: 59) has argued that domestic problems may
have a greater direct impact on American institutions and values than
do the traditional threats from abroad. We must therefore
conceptualize security in such a way as to permit the investigation not
only of international challenges but also of domestic challenges,
where appropriate, and of the interconnection between the domestic
and international sources of insecurity.
International Political Survival
Realists depict international politics as a realm of "power, struggle,
and of accommodation" (Waltz 1979: 113). This pessimistic view
flows from another of neorealism's core assumptionsanarchyand the
logic that it is deemed to imply.

13In the neorealist view, the international system, populated by

sovereign states, must necessarily be decentralized and anarchic. In
the absence of a central authority, each state retains the right to judge
"its grievances and ambitions according to its own dictates or desire"
and to decide on the use of force (Waltz 1959: 159). The risk of
conflict and war in such a decentralized system is high, because there
is a constant possibility that governments may resort to the use of
force at any time. Survival is precarious and highly contingent, and
securing it is posited as the basic goal of states in an anarchic system
(Waltz 1979: 91-93, 126). Security in the neorealist articulation is a
scarce value. One state's gain in security usually comes at the expense
of others, therefore zero-sum and distributional calculations inform
security practice.

Some realists recognized early on that, in the atomic era, one nation's
security cannot be "purchased...at the expense of another nation"
(Morgenthau 1978: 553). National survival requires that all (nuclear)
nations be made secure. This idea may be seen as the precursor of the
concept of common security. In the view of neorealists, however,
acceptance of a stable nuclear deterrence situation does not qualify as
a commitment to common security, for it still rests on a threat of
mutual

 Page 39
destruction. Common security is defined by the Palme Commission
(1982: xiii) as the achievement of security ''not against the adversary
but together with him" through a noncompetitive and
nonconfrontational commitment to joint survival. The idea of
common security has not been accepted by neorealists, who have
argued that it is untenable because states are not likely to equate their
own security with that of others (Elman and Elman 1995: 187).
Neorealists continue to posit national survival as the basic goal in
anarchy, maintaining that states have to look out for their own security
and well-being.
National survival is defined essentially in political terms. For Kenneth
Waltz, survival means the preservation of the political autonomy of
statesthat is, their preservation as independent political entities (Waltz
1979: 91-92). For Hans Morgenthau, national survival, equated with
national interest, encompasses "the integrity of the nation's territory,
of its political institutions, and of its culture" (Morgenthau 1952: 988;
see also Morgenthau 1978: 553). The minimum national "core
values," according to Arnold Wolfers, are national independence and
territorial integrity. But beyond this, Wolfers asserts that some states
may seek to acquire and protect other values, such as "rank, respect,
material possessions, and special privileges," while other states may
deem that national self-preservation requires national self-extension
(Wolfers 1962c: 15455).

14 Realists recognize that the goals of states may vary endlessly but
argue that political survival is most important and a prerequisite to the
achievement of other goals, such as "tranquility, profit and power"
(Waltz 1979: 126). In other words, there is a hierarchy of values, and
political survival is at the top of the list. In terms of threats to national
survival, the realist concern is with capabilities and not with
intentions, which are deemed to be more difficult to discern and in
any case subject to rapid change. Although neorealists recognize the
many elements of power, military power is privileged. They see force
as both the principal threat to security and the principal means to
secure political survival. It is not only the ultima ratio, but "indeed the
first and constant [possibility]" (Waltz 1979: 113). Hence the
emphasis on military force and war in realist definitions of security.

This realist concern with international political survival and the

emphasis on military force have been critiqued on different grounds.
The first set of criticisms issues predominantly from international
relations scholars termed as neoliberal institutionalists. Neoliberalism,
which accepts several of the key premises of neorealism,15asserts that
the negative effects of anarchy posited by neorealism can be mitigated
by international institutions and that political survival need not be as
precarious as neorealism contends. In this view, a relatively high
degree

 Page 40
of international governance and order is possible (Keohane 1986a:
194). Neoliberal institutionalism merges with the English school on
the issue of international society, which, according to Buzan (1993a),
is the necessary condition for the development of international
regimes.

16He argues that international society, like the balance of power, is a

natural product of international relations in anarchy.

A related contention is that anarchy has been overemphasized at the

expense of interdependence, an equally important structural feature
(Milner 1993: 162-63). Interdependence and its presumed
consequences form the core of commercial liberalism, which contends
that growing trade and economic interdependence will minimize the
negative effects of anarchy and gradually transform the nature of
international politics.17Although the military-security component will
continue to be important, commercial liberalism holds that the
growing and inextricable connection between national economic well-
being and the global economy will reduce the importance of political
independence and territorial integrity. Individual states may still try to
improve their relative positions, but they will do so in the context of
interdependence. The international disposition and behavior of states
in a "trading world" will be influenced by considerations of
interdependence rather than by insecurity born of anarchy.
A third thesis is that war among Western nations has become
subrationally unthinkable (Mueller 1989). Peace has become
addictive. Not only is war not rational, but also, because of its
ineffectiveness and undesirability, it is no longer even an option.
Major war among these countries has become obsolete. Finally, the
democratic peace theory contends that regime type, and not
international material structure, is the determining factor and that a
world of democratic states is inherently peaceful. This thesis holds
that democracies do not go to war with each other, or at least that
relations among them are more peaceful than relations among
nondemocracies or between democracies and nondemocracies (Doyle
1989; Oren 1996; Russett 1993). Belief in the institutional constraints
(the weight of public opinion and the checks and balances in a
democratic system) and the transferability of democratic norms
(compromise and peaceful resolution of conflicts) from the domestic
to the international realm underlies this logic.
These various but interrelated theses have been deployed to contest
the neorealist prediction of the future of international politics in
Western Europe. Neorealists claim that the anarchic structure and the
distribution of power are still the critical determinants of war and
peace, and that with the termination of the Cold War, the prospects for
major crises and war in Europe are likely to increase markedly
(Mearsheimer 1990). The

 Page 41
others argue that Europe will not go "back to the future" and that
change has been and will continue to be peaceful (Keohane, Nye,
Hoffmann 1993). Robert Jervis has argued that "time's arrow"
predominates in Western Europe and that international politics among
developed countries constitutes unmapped territory; it will be different
in the future than it was in the past (Jervis 1991-92). Material
structure, it is argued, is no longer a guide to the behavior of states.
Peace among Western European countriesbecause of the increase in
the cost of war, its decreasing benefits, growing economic
interdependence and the benefits of trade, and the strength of
democratic institutions and valuesis "overdetermined." Because these
changes are deep and mutually reinforcing, they cannot easily be
reversed.

18 Consequently, the traditional concern with political survival and

military threats is seen as no longer applicable to these states.

Realist predictions of an unstable, multipolar system in Western

Europe have yet to materialize. Change in that region thus far has
been peaceful. Although the institutional, commercial liberal, and
democratic peace arguments appear plausible, they suffer limitations
as well.19 It may still be too soon to arrive at any firm conclusion, and
in any case these propositions apply only to a small group of countries
in one region of the world. It is pertinent to note that most of the
scholars who argue that the future of the developed world will be
different following the end of the Cold War at the same time
recognize the continued salience of the political survival problem and
accept the focus on military threats with respect to the so-called
periphery. There, the future is expected to resemble the past. In fact,
they expect more rather than less conflict in the Third World (Jervis
1991-92: 58-61).
A second set of criticisms issue from scholars of Third World
security. Although they are not engaged in a direct debate with
neorealists, some of their claims rest on premises that go against the
grain of realism. For example, many of these analysts tend to stress
the domestic challenges and to skew security analysis in favor of the
intrastate level. Although they acknowledge the existence of
international security concerns, those issues are more often treated as
extensions of internal vulnerabilities. This attempt to explain the
security behavior of Third World states, including major ones like
China and India, in terms of domestic factors runs against realist
analysis, which privileges international material structure. Some
analysts (Job 1992; Jackson and Rosberg 1982) go even further,
arguing that the international security dilemma does not apply to
Third World states because they "are preoccupied with internal rather
than external security, and weak states have a guaranteed existence"
due to the force of international norms that support sover-

 Page 42
eignty and territorial boundaries. It is claimed, therefore, that "the
assumptions of the traditional security dilemma metaphor are
violated" (Job 1992a: 18). This extreme position, like that which
would seek to limit security to international concerns, is untenable.
International norms of sovereignty and territorial integrity have not
prevented territorial disputes or encroachments. Such disputes and
violations are in fact very common among the so-called Third World
states. Further, these states, certainly those in Asia, are as much
concerned with the international security dilemma as are those in the
Westin some cases, even more so. The balance between internal and
international concerns will vary by country and region. Care should be
taken not to arbitrarily privilege one category or the other. At the
conceptual level, provision must be made for the study of security at
both levels as well as of the interconnection between them.
The final critique does not contest the relevance of the problem of
international political survival as a security concern. It is directed at
the subordination of the political and sociocultural dimensions to the
military one. The security of human collectivitiesgroup, nation, and
statecan be endangered not only by force but also by ideas and
policies short of force. In some cases, political threats may be more
potent and consequential than the threat of military forceas
demonstrated, for example, by the social and political revolutions in
Iran, the Philippines, South Korea, the Soviet Union, and several
Eastern European countries. At the international level, the present
government in China and to a lesser degree that of Vietnam consider
the threat of "peaceful evolution" (a euphemism for Western advocacy
of democracy and human rights as universal values) posed by the
United States and Western Europe more serious than a military threat
to their national security. According to some analysts, neglect of this
political and sociocultural dimension has led to the militarization of
international relations and of security. It is hard to deny that some
core values, especially those relating to identity, are essentially
political and sociocultural and may be threatened at least as much by
ideas as by force. It is important to recognize the salience of these
dimensions and to factor them into security analysis.
These criticisms have merit, but they do not negate the continued
importance of the problems of international political survival and
military threat for a large number of countries. Although the nature
and urgency of those problems may vary across countries and over
time, they must continue to feature in the conceptualization of
security. A more fundamental challenge to the realist articulation of
security is posed by analysts who attempt to broaden the scope of
security to include problems and dangers in nonconventional sectors.

 Page 43
Nonconventional Dimensions
Since about the mid-to late 1970s there have been growing calls to
redefine security to include economic, environmental, and other
nonmilitary dimensions. The case for inclusion of these concerns has
been argued more vigorously since the end of the Cold War; it should
be noted here, however, that a broad view of security was common
among certain Asian countries even during the Cold War era. Since
the termination of the Cold War, such a comprehensive view of
security has met with greater acceptance among some policy makers
in the West as well. Their receptiveness can be traced to a number of
developments, including the complexity of post-Cold War
international politics and the attempt to gain a handle on it; the
growing concern with domestic issues in many Western states; the
continuing weaknesses of many states as modern nation-states; the
eagerness of Asian states to modernize rapidly; a perception in the
United States and Western Europe that the character and scale of
economic change was undermining American and Western dominance
of the international political economy; increasing awareness of and
concern over issues like population explosion, climatic change, and
other related problems; globalization and its perceived negative
effects in some countries on state autonomy and national values; and
the rise of ethnonational conflicts.
Some policy makers and academics argue that the "highest stakes" are
now in the economic realm, and that the outcome of competition in
that area will ordain the future relative power positions of states in the
international system and determine the welfare of their people
(Sandholtz et al. 1992). Thus "[it] is impossible to speak of national
security without speaking about economics. It is now an accepted
truth that there is an essential economic dimension cutting across the
more familiar political and military aspects of our [U.S.] overall
national security strategy" (Kimmit 1991: 398). A new era has begun,
in which "security issues are often submerged and hidden by market
relations, and conversely market relations can be distorted to appear
as security questions" (Zysman 1991: 105). In this new era, ''the
struggle and threat [will be] economic, not military" (Sorenson 1990).
National economic well-being, cast increasingly as economic security,
has been depicted as a core objective of governments.

20

The case for including environmental concerns and problems stresses

the threat to the physical survival of humankind that supposedly arises
from environmental degradation.21 In the words of U.S. vice president
Al Gore, "this process [environmental degradation] threatens not only
the quality of life but life itself. The global environment has

 Page 44
thus become an issue of national security" (Gore 1990: 60). Changes
in the climate pattern and sea levels induced by global warming,
increased exposure to dangerous ultraviolet radiation resulting from
depletion of the ozone layer, the decimation of biodiversity as a
consequence of indiscriminate deforestation, and the hazards of toxic
waste disposal and pollution are all presented as threats to the quality
of life, if not to life itself, on a massive scale. Among the examples
put forward are these:
· The welfare of some 400 million people living in the lowland
plains of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh has been affected by
upland deforestation (Hassan 1991).
· Land and water degradation have created millions of
environmental refugees worldwide, leading to large-scale domestic
and international population flows with destabilizing consequences
(Jacobson 1988; see also Ek and Karadawi 1991).
· A sea-level rise of 1.5-2.0 meters would flood 20 percent of
Bangladesh, inundate most of the Maldives, and threaten nearly
half the population and production of Thailand (Oerlemans 1989;
Vellinga and Leatherman 1989).
· Global warming will increase the probability of severe drought in
the agricultural heartlands of Australia, Europe, North America,
and the former Soviet Union.
Such severe consequences are depicted as comparable to or even
greater than those of military conflict. The environment is said to be
in a state of crisis that requires urgent action. Because "the
environment" is common and indivisible, some have argued that
human and planetary survival rather than national survival should be
the primary concern of states.
It has also been argued that environmental degradation could fuel
violent conflicts among human groups. The environment is already a
violent conflicts among human groups. The environment is already a
major domestic political issue and will become an issue of high
politics at the international level (MacNeill, Winsemius, and
Yakushiji 1991: 52). Environmental concerns and ecological power,
independently or in conjunction with other elements, will figure
prominently in defining the international behavior of states.

22Political discourse is replacing scientific and technical consideration

of matters relating to the environment. Whereas environmental threats
were once viewed in the context of the struggle of man against nature,
expansion in knowledge has made cause and effect more readily
identifiable and attributable to the actions of human collectivities
(Buzan 1991: 131). Thus, environment-induced stress, which has
always been present, will now take on a more explicitly political
dimension with the potential to fuel conflict. Developing

 Page 45
countries, because of their lesser ability to mitigate the negative
consequences, are viewed as particularly vulnerable to such conflict.
Social consequences of environmental degradation, such as reduced
agricultural production, economic decline, population displacement,
and disruption of social relations, may fuel domestic (relating to group
identity and relative deprivation) or interstate conflicts (Homer-Dixon
1991, 1994).
There is also a tactical component to the case for broadening the scope
of security. Because of the emotive character of national security and
the enormous sacrifices that it commands, the association of
environmental concerns with national security may be an attempt to
elevate further the profile of environmental issues and to secure
greater funding for related programs. The attempt to link environment
and security may also be aimed at demonstrating the futility of
spending vast amounts of money on armaments that only breed
mutual insecurity when there are many other crucial issues to be
addressed. Highlighting environmental concerns could also be a way
of justifying an environmental role, and funding, for the military
establishment in the post-Cold War period.

23

Some aspects of these new dimensions are not really new and can
readily be accommodated by the realist paradigm. Economic strength
has always been considered an important component of national
power and security (Morgenthau 1978; Knorr 1975). The
development and sustenance of military power and the relative
positions of states in the international system have depended on their
economic health and ranking. Politically motivated disruptions in the
flow of strategic supplies, such as oil in 1973, and explicit economic
sanctions, including blockades and denial of markets, have been
viewed and dealt with as security issues. On some occasions
governments have resorted to the threat or use of force in dealing with
such situations. Economic power has also been deployed in the form
of inducements or sanctionsaccess to or denial of aid, resources, or
marketsin the service of foreign and security policy.24These economic
aspectsthe relative power and position of states, politically motivated
threats, and the deployment of economic power as an instrument of
state policyfit into the neorealist construction of security and are not
contested.
Similarly, environmental degradation as a source of domestic or
international conflict does not pose a problem for the realist paradigm.
Environmental problems that can be a source of political conflict and
contribute to violence within and among states are considered by
realists as falling within the domain of security (Lynn-Jones and
Miller 1995: 5, Critchley and Terriff 1993). Some have argued that
the causal connec-

 Page 46
tion between environmental degradation and violent conflict is not
warranted. There are multiple mediating factors, so that the linkage is
open to varying interpretations. At best, environmental degradation is
a proximate rather than an underlying cause of conflict. Because they
fail to recognize the distinction between environmental migrants and
refugees, the push-pull factors at work, the long gestation period and
the gradualism that characterizes migration and refugee flows, the
advocates of environmental security inflate the number of refugees,
their power, the urgency of the situation, and the potential for
environmental disputes to cause open conflict (Suhrke 1992). One
study concludes that "insofar as it causes displacement of people,
[environmental degradation] is more likely to generate long-term
social tension or exploitation than acute conflict" (Suhrke 1992).
Similarly, resource wars are held to be less likely in the contemporary
era because of a robust world trading system that provides access to
resources without the need for territorial control, the difficulty of
exploiting resources through conquest, and the availability of
substitute sources and materials (Deudney 1990). The merits of these
criticisms notwithstanding, the linkage between environmental
degradation and violent conflict and such like other linkages are not
antithetical to the realist paradigm. As pointed out by Quincy Wright
(1964) more than five decades ago, the causes of war can be
numerous and wide-ranging.
The broadening of the concept of security to include concerns like
revitalization of the economy or a safe environment that do not
involve violent conflict is, however, controversial. Some analysts
label the linking of nonconventional sectors like the environment and
security as "muddled thinking" (Deudney 1990; see also Levy 1995).
The critique has several strands. First, there is the problem of defining
what constitutes economic or environmental security. These can be,
and have been, defined in many ways. Economic security, for
example, may be defined variously as "acceptable levels of welfare,"
example, may be defined variously as "acceptable levels of welfare,"

25unrestricted access to resources of production and markets for

goods and services, the capacity to maintain international comparative
advantage, or the maintenance of a healthy international economic
system. In the case of environmental security, there is no agreed-upon
definition of ''the environment" or of what would constitute a secure
environment. In the period immediately following World War II, the
term environment came to mean "the natural influences surrounding
people including flora, fauna, climate, water and soil" (Worster 1977;
italics in original), and a unified theory of ecology emerged. But over
time that consensus broke down, giving rise to competing definitions.
There is also no agreement on the defining quality of nature, although
some argue for equilibrium. Controversies

 Page 47
surround the issues of stability and change and the determination of
what constitutes a damaged or healthy environment. There is no clear,
compelling norm (Worster 1977: chap. 16, 342-33). Ecologists appear
divided among themselves as to how society should be advised to act
in relation to the earth.
Second, even if economic and environmental security can be
adequately defined, the next problem is to identify threats to them.
With the exception of a narrow range of politically motivated actions,
threats to national economic well-being are difficult to identify. A
whole spectrum of economic activities are rooted in the market
economy and its pluralist managementchanges in prices, interest rates,
and exchange rates; differences in patterns of saving and investment;
differences in innovative capacity, management methods, marketing
techniques, distribution system, and financial systemthat can
negatively affect the health of a national economy. It would be
difficult and possibly meaningless to classify them as security threats.
Not only will the precise source of threat be difficult to locate, but the
consequences will be unclear. The consequences of economic or
related developments are often indirect and do not become apparent
until long after their occurrence. Similarly, there is no agreement on
what constitutes the greatest threat to the environment: population
growth, the bourgeois lifestyle, and industrial pollution have all been
named. A related criticism is rooted in the inconclusiveness of
scientific evidence. Critics question the basis and evidence for the
posited environmental changes. Is global warming really taking place?
Even if that point is conceded, the rate of warming and its
consequences cannot be ascertained with any degree of certainty.
Given the ambiguous nature of the evidence and the enormous cost
involved in addressing such problems, governments will be unable to
act decisively, especially in the face of other pressing claims on
resources.
Third, "securitizing" economic and environmental problems is
counterproductive and carries the risk of militarizing economic and
environmental relations. A security-oriented management of the
economy might argue for greater self-reliance to reduce exposure to
circumstances and conditions beyond national control in order to
minimize vulnerability. Whatever the merits of such an approach, it
also opens the door to economic nationalism and fuels protectionism.
Sectors and groups unable or unwilling to make the necessary
adjustment, or a government unwilling to incur the political cost
associated with implementing unpopular welfare-reducing policies,
may seek refuge in national security and attempt to force the burden
of adjustment onto other countries. Protectionist policies, regardless of
rationale and origin, almost always have costs and, despite short-term
gains, imply loss of

 Page 48
efficiency with negative consequences for long-term welfare.
Similarly, it is argued that linking environment and security to raise
environmental awareness is counterproductive (Deudney 1990).
Subsuming them under the label of security nationalizes and
militarizes environmental issues, making their resolution even more
difficult. Further, the label of national security deprives environmental
issues of the long-term attention they deserve. Environmental issues
are important but are better addressed separately on their own merits,
not under the label of security, which has a specific meaning and an
urgent character.
Finally, and perhaps most important, critics argue that economic and
environmental problems and their solutions have little in common
with the traditional focus on the pursuit of security from organized
violence. The two differ in crucial ways: the nature of the problem,
the source of threats, the degree of intentionality, the levels at which
the related problems have to be addressed, and the instruments
involved in ameliorating or resolving them are all vastly different. The
expertise and mindset required to address economic and
environmental issues are not the same as those needed to resolve
security issues. Although the concept of common security has been in
vogue, it has not been widely accepted outside progressive circles.
National rather than common security is still the focus of mainstream
thinking and practice. Simply labeling economic and environmental
issues as security concerns does not alter their nature or change the
way they will be dealt with. Nothing is gained by attaching the
security label to them, and doing so could well have negative
consequences by militarizing economic and environmental relations
and possibly reducing material welfare. Thus, there is no conceptual,
analytical, or policy value in making the linkage. If all forces and
events that threaten life are treated as threats to national security, then
the term will cease to have any analytical value. According to this line
of thinking, the linkage between the nonconventional sectors and
security is relevant only as a possible cause of interstate conflict or as
a factor to be considered in assessing the impact of war (see Critchley
and Terriff 1993).
These criticisms have considerable merit, but they are also flawed in
several respects. First, the differences between the nonconventional
dimensions (economic and environmental) and the so-called
traditional focus of security are overdrawn. Admittedly, economic and
environmental threats are diffuse and their consequences difficult to
predict in time, space, and magnitude; they can issue from within and
without state borders; they are largely unintentional; force is
irrelevant; and their resolution, for the most part, depends on
international cooperation. However, with the exceptions of
intentionality and the use of force, the

 Page 49
other problems or features are not unique to the economic and
environmental dimensions, but apply to the political-military
dimension as well. Political and cultural threats that bear upon
political identity and autonomy are seldom clear-cut and often have a
long gestation period; even the deployment of force in what has been
described as low-intensity conflict or insurgency is less precise than
that presumed in traditional definitions of security. Political and
military threats to territorial integrity and political institutions, as
noted earlier, can arise from domestic as well as international sources.
International cooperation and institutions are not irrelevant to the
mitigation and resolution of political-military security problems.
Further, common security is not popular just in "progressive" circles
and is not necessarily a competing alternative to national security.
With growing limitations on the effectiveness and roles of the state,
increasing benefits from international specialization, and the
increasing destructiveness of war, common security is gaining
prominence.
A second shortcoming of the argument concerns its definition of
security in terms of a specific instrument (organized violence). It is
fallacious to argue that issues that do not involve force are not security
concerns. Organized violence is only one means by which even the
traditional core values can be threatened or protected; other means can
also be deployed to threaten or secure political survival. Thus, to
define security in terms of a single instrument, however important it
may be, is unnecessarily restrictive and misleading. Further, the
threat, use, and control of organized violence is more aptly addressed
under the label of defense, which is a component of security.
A third shortcoming of these criticisms is their limitation of security
to the nation-state level. As noted earlier, although the nation-state is
still dominant, there can also be other referents of security, and
security can be pursued at different levels. Once this is acknowledged,
the fact that political survival issues are addressed primarily at the
national level whereas some economic and environmental issues must
be addressed at the regional and global levels, ceases to be a
fundamental problem. Admittedly, there may be tensions between the
approaches at the different levels and between the different issue
areas. Action to enhance the health of the world trading system may in
certain situations undermine national economic security; action to
enhance resource security may conflict with action to promote
environmental security. But such tensions are inevitable and will have
to be managed. Management will require making hard choices, but
that would be true even if the problems were considered separately
and addressed by different groups or agencies of government.

 Page 50
Fourth, the meaning of words and concepts evolves over time and
varies across space. As circumstances change, so will the content of
"security." To insist that because something has been so in the past, it
must be so now and in the futureto foreclose reconstruction and even
modification, despite changing circumstancescan drain a concept of
its practical relevance. In any case, the construction of security that
has been labeled as traditional, conventional, or classic is not as old or
as universal as it is made out to be. David Baldwin (1995) points out
that the primary concern during the interwar years was the elimination
of war. Democracy, international law, national self-determination,
disarmament, and collective security were viewed as the most
important ways to promote international peace and security. National
security became predominant only after World War II. Further, in the
early postwar period, analysts such as Harold Lasswell and Arnold
Wolfers emphasized both military and nonmilitary means, warning
against overreliance on armaments to ensure national security
(Baldwin 1995). They also linked security to domestic affairs,
including economic matters, civil liberty, and the democratic political
process. The U.S. National Security Council was established in 1947
as a forum to integrate domestic, foreign, and military policies related
to national security (Peterson 1992). Only later, during the Cold War,
did international military issues dominate and become the focus of
security thinking.
Going farther back in history, Ernest May (1992) argues that
American security thinking has evolved in four stages. In the first
stage (1790s-1870s), the concerns were preservation of the Union and
safe borders; in the second stage (1880s-1930s), social order at home
and hemispheric independence; in the third stage (1945-1960s),
prosperity at home and the independence of the "free world"; and in
the fourth stage (1970s onward), stability and economic growth. This
historical perspective illustrates that the scope of national security is
broad and variable over time. What is needed is a more flexible and
dynamic conception of security that can accommodate diversity and
change.
Finally, the argument that the analysis and solution of environmental
and economic problems require radically different expertise and that
for this reason they should not be considered security issues is not
tenable. It assumes that an expert must be knowledgeable on all
aspects of security. This is not the case even with regard to so-called
traditional security. There are experts on nuclear strategies,
conventional wars, unconventional wars, disarmament and arms
control, regional conflicts, and so forth. No one person has equal
expertise in all areas. As Lasswell (1950: 55-66) observed, "there are
no experts on national security. There are only experts on different
aspects of the problem." Admittedly, the

 Page 51
expertise required for addressing economic and environmental
problems is substantially different from the kind of knowledge
required to deal with "traditional" security issues. But this fact argues
for an interdisciplinary approach to the study of security, not for
defining the domain on the basis of the expertise of the analyst.
Expertise is properly defined in terms of subject matter and not the
other way around.
There is still the difficult problem of how to define and delimit the
scope of security. As correctly argued by those advocating a limited
conception, without specific criteria all manner of things can be
labeled as security concerns, so that the concept and the subfield will
cease to have coherence. For this reason, criteria such as similarity in
the nature of problem, political motivation or intentionality, and the
role of force are appealing. But such criteria are invariably bound to
specific paradigms, and they will include or exclude various issues by
definition. To depend on them is not an objective way of evaluating
contending conceptions rooted in different worldviews. The
requirement is for criteria independent of specific worldviews. The
issue of independent criteria for classification is discussed further in
the final chapter of this study.
Approach to Security: Competition or Cooperation?
The neorealist claims that security is a scarce value, that its pursuit
must necessarily be competitive and based on self-help, and that
military power must play a crucial role are contested by neoliberalism
and commercial liberalism. The latter contend that security in anarchy
can be achieved through cooperation as well as through competition,
and that cooperation may be the more rational approach in certain
circumstances.
The Case for Self-Help
Because there is no higher authority to guarantee survival, neorealists
Because there is no higher authority to guarantee survival, neorealists
argue that each state has to be responsible for its own security. This
logic places a premium on self-help, which is equated with unilateral
and competitive policies, and the buildup of national capabilities
(Waltz 1979: 105-7, 111). Neorealists recognize that the buildup of
capabilities to ensure national survival can intensify security
competition and establish a vicious circle, but this is accepted as an
inevitable feature. The resulting security dilemma cannot be solved as
long as anarchy persists;

26 it can only be managed, and thus only relative security is possible.

"Peace, if one defines that concept as a state of tranquility or mutual
concord, is not likely to break out in the world" (Mearsheimer 1995a:
12).

 Page 52
If national capabilities are available in sufficient quantity and quality,
then self-reliance is the most reliable and efficient strategy to ensure
survival. Self-help, however, does not rule out seeking assistance from
others. Alliances and alignments are viewed as ways of enhancing
national power and spreading costs. An alliance is formed in response
to an imbalance in power (Waltz 1979: 123-31) or as a "balance
against threats" (Walt 1987: 5). Alliance is viewed as a temporary
arrangement. Because alliance is an "outer directed" arrangement,
based on calculations of national interest and the distribution of
power, realists do not consider it an institution in the mode of liberal
institutionalism (Mearsheimer 1995b: 83).

27 Similarly, a concert, because it is a great-power condominium

reflecting the distribution of power among them and does not violate
their self-interest, is considered largely consistent with realism
(Mearsheimer 1995a: 35).

Collective security, on the other hand, is considered to be sharply at

variance with neorealism. Although collective security is concerned
with the management of power, the emphasis is on across-the-board
application of norms and rules that may entail the subordination of
national interests to that of the community.28 This strategy is believed
to be deeply flawed and untenable as a national security strategy
(Mearsheimer 1995a: 36-37).
Neorealists are skeptical about cooperative security strategies. While
accepting that cooperation does occur, they argue that it is difficult to
achieve and even more difficult to sustain. Concern over cheating and
relative gains and over the enormous cost of failing to develop
national capabilities inhibits and limits cooperation, particularly in the
security domain (Grieco 1993).29 Similarly, institutions are not
viewed as significant in matters of war and peace (Mearsheimer
1995a: 13-14). Seen basically as a reflection of the distribution of
power and the calculation of national interest, particularly that of the
great powers, institutions are believed to have no independent effect
on state behavior and to be of consequence only on the margins.30
Realists also argue that international politics cannot be transformed by
abstract ideals and reason; it can be managed only by "manipulating
the perennial forces that have shaped the past as they will the future"
(Morgenthau 1979: 10). Peace can be achieved only through
accommodation. Diplomacy has a crucial role in the mitigation and
minimization of political conflicts, especially among nuclear states.
Neorealists and, to a much higher degree, the earlier realists attach
great importance to diplomacy as an element of national power and an
instrument of statecraft (Morgenthau 1979: 529).

 Page 53
The Case for Cooperation
Neoliberalism's challenge is directed primarily at the neorealist claims
that cooperation is difficult to achieve and sustain and that institutions
matter only on the margins. It posits that anarchy permits a variety of
interactions among states and that a higher degree of cooperation is
possible under anarchy than neorealism would acknowledge. Where
and when mutual interests exist (that is, in situations where potential
gains can be derived from coordination and collaboration), states will
engage in cooperation. Relative gains are important, but only when
"gains in one period alter power relations in another, and where there
is some likelihood that subsequent advantage in power may be used
against oneself' (Keohane 1993: 275). Both the economic and security
realms are seen as characterized by opportunities for cooperation,
although the security realm is more impoverished in this regard
(Lipson 1993; see also Jervis 1983). The difference between the
security and economic realms is attributed to the high cost of betrayal,
the difficulties of monitoring, and a tendency to perceive security in
zero-sum terms.

31Nevertheless, cooperation in the security realm is not totally absent

even among adversaries, for example, between the United States and
the Soviet Union during the Cold War.32

Concerning institutions, the demand for which is seen as increasing

with rising interdependence, the claim of institutionalism is threefold:
first, institutions are constitutive (can help define interests); second,
through rules and conventions they can regulate state behavior by
affecting incentives; and third, by altering conceptions of self-interest,
reducing uncertainty, and stabilizing expectations, they can facilitate
peaceful change (Keohane 1984, 1989, 1993). The peaceful
adaptation to the changed structure of the international system after
the dramatic developments during the 1989-91 period and the
continued relevance of international institutions in the post-Cold War
strategies of the major powers are advanced in support of the third
claim (Keohane 1993; Keohane, Nye, and Hoffmann 1993; Ruggie
1993a).
As noted earlier, commercial liberalism contends that the negative
effects of anarchy can be overcome through growing economic
interdependence. The relatively low cost of trade and its increasing
benefits, the growing cost of force and its diminishing returns, and the
social learning that will occur, it is argued, can move international
relations in the direction of a "trading world" characterized by
interdependence based on differentiation in functions and on
reciprocity.33Incentive to wage war will dissipate because war
disrupts trade and other economic interactions. In these circumstances,
cooperation rather than competition is the more rational approach to
national security (Rosecrance 1986: ix). The

 Page 54
reasoning of commercial liberalism is in some ways similar to the
expansive logic of neofunctionalism (Haas 1968; Lindberg 1967),
which asserts that economic integration, as it begins to embrace more
issues and groups, will gradually spill over and affect areas of high
politics. The process will make war less likely and even eliminate it
altogether among the affected group of states, leading to the
establishment of a pluralistic security community (Deutsch 1957: 5-
7).
A Continuum of Systems
Although the various approaches to security are usually presented as
fundamentally different and competing, it is possible to view them as
part of a continuum of security systems. This proposition is
underpinned by the constructivist claim (elaborated in the next
section) that security systems are social constructions and that anarchy
permits self-help as well as other-help systems. Based on this
proposition, self-help, cooperative security, and community security
may be constructed as three ideal types of security systems on a
continuum, with relational identity as the key determining variable.

34In a self-help system the relational identity is negative. States,

fearing each other, formulate their security in zero-sum and
distributional terms. The emphasis in such a system will be on the
development of national capabilities and, where applicable, on
collective self-defense arrangements.

In a cooperative security system, relational identity is not negative, or

is only minimally so, and it may even be positive. States may be
somewhat suspicious and mistrustful of each other, but there is no
perception of an immediate threat. In this situation countries accept
the status quo or at least are not bent on radically altering it. They are
likely to conceive of their security in limited terms. The central
security concern stems from the uncertainty and potential for
misperception inherent in anarchy. States oriented toward the status
quo have a mutual interest in avoiding least preferred outcomes
through coordination and in promoting common interest through
collaboration (Stein 1990: chap. 2).
In such a situation there is incentive to cooperate for mutual gain, and
international regimes seem well placed to play a direct role in
reducing or eliminating uncertainty and ameliorating the security
dilemma. They may do so through the codification of principles, rules,
and procedures to govern international relations (including the use of
force) among participating states; through regulation, including
limitation, of arms acquisition and deployment; and by mechanisms
for dispute settlement. These measures will help lift the fog of
suspicion, enable a more accurate reading of the intentions of other
states, and prevent misperception and unintended escalation of tension
and conflict. Instead

 Page 55
of planning for worst-case scenarios, a practice that can become self-
fulfilling, states interested in preserving the status quo and assured
that others have a similar commitment can follow a moderate course,
one that emphasizes security through defense rather than offense.

35Strategic doctrines, force structure, acquisition of weapons systems,

planning and training, and alignments and alliances can all be tailored
accordingly. This is the thrust of the strategic principle of cooperative
engagement and cooperative security advocated by Ashton B. Carter,
William J. Perry, and John D. Steinbruner (1992), and by Janne E.
Nolan (1994).

The improved climate resulting from the implementation of assurance

and deterrence strategies can foster higher levels of cooperation in
other areasfor example, economic cooperation or collective action
with regard to external actors or global issues. The benefits of such
cooperation may spur even more cooperation and spill over into other
issue areas. Such cumulative cooperation strengthens the web of
interdependence and raises the cost of resorting to force, while
reducing the utility of force; in general, it alters the cost-benefit
calculus in favor of peaceful resolution of political disputes.
Cooperation to reduce uncertainty, increase the cost of resorting to
force, and decrease the risks of war through restraints is rooted
essentially in the rational calculation of self-interest and reciprocity on
the part of participating states.
Community security, the third ideal type, is rooted in the
constructivist claim that identity and interests are embedded in the
cultural-institutional context. It is potentially more enduring than
cooperative security and has the potential to prevent the emergence of
new power struggles. In a community security system, national
identity and national interest become fused with those of a larger
community of states. The problem of political survival has been
overcome, and security is not a scarce value. Each state has an interest
in the security of the others. There is no expectation that force will be
used to resolve disputes. Force becomes illegitimate as an instrument
of policy in the international politics among the states that form the
community.
The three systems as just described (summarized in Table 2) are pure
or ideal types. In practice, elements of different systems may coexist
and overlap. A competitive system does not preclude cooperation, but
any cooperation that takes place will be designed to regulate
competition and to avoid mutually undesired outcomes (such as
mutual annihilation) rather than to eliminate competition. Such was
the basis of cooperation and arms control agreements between the two
superpowers during the Cold War. The perceived destructiveness of
war may also create demands for common security. The Palme
Commission, which articulated the common security alternative to
mutual deterrence, based its recom-

 Page 56
TABLE 2
Identity Relations and Security Systems
Identity Interest Formulation Security
Relation System
Negative Zero-sum, distributional Competitive,
self-help
Indifferent Mutual interest, absolute gains Cooperative
security
Positive Internationalization of national Community
identity and interest security

mendations on the premise that there will be no victors in a nuclear

war. Security must therefore be achieved ''not against the adversary
but together with him. International security must rest on a
commitment to joint survival rather than on a threat of mutual
destruction" (Palme Commission 1982: xiii). The commission
recommended a positive approach to security that essentially seeks to
curb and manage the competitive pursuit of security. Similarly,
competition is not ruled out in a cooperative system, but it is
conducted within an overall framework that values cooperation as
being in the national interests of the participating states. "Cooperative
security is a model of interstate relations in which disputes are
expected to occur, but they are expected to do so within the limits of
agreed-upon norms and established procedures" (Nolan 1994: 5).
The significance of the different approaches and the manner in which
they combine are not predetermined but depend on the international
political context. In situations that approximate the neorealist
worldview, competitive strategies and military power may be critical;
in situations that may be characterized as "mature anarchy,"

36cooperative strategies would be more relevant. In the case of

complex interdependence, both competitive and cooperative strategies
may have to be deployed.37 If the security agenda is broadened to
include the economic and environmental dimensions, then cooperative
and community security may become even more salient.

Over time there may also be movement from one security system to
another. For example, cooperative security may lead to community
security. By providing an environment in which socialization and
learning can occur, regimes can contribute to the internalization of
"new understandings of self and other, of acquiring new role
identities,"

 Page 57
which over the long term helps transform identity, interest, and power
politics (Wendt 1992: 417; Caparaso 1993: 66-81). In addition to
legitimating the international order, the shared norms and values
forged and consolidated through the process strengthen international
society and could lead to the development of a pluralistic security
community in which force is no longer an option in resolving
disputes. But such "progress" is not inevitable. There is no necessary
linear progression from competitive through cooperative to
community security. Movement can proceed in both directions.
Explaining Security: Material or Ideational?
Neorealists explain the security problem and the approach to security
in terms of a certain logic of anarchy, which, they argue, cannot be
transformed as long as the ordering principle is anarchy. Its
consequences can only be managed, and thus considerations of power
and diplomacy are critical. State behavior is explained largely if not
exclusively on the basis of the international material structure. The
constructivists hold that there is nothing inevitable and immutable
about the realist logic of anarchy that has produced the survival
problem and the associated system of self-help. Rather, they are the
product of a set of historically rooted, intersubjective understandings
among states. A change in intersubjective understanding can alleviate
or transform the security problem. Constructivism argues that material
factors have no meaning in and of themselves; they derive their
meaning from shared understandings and state practices, and
ideational factors and perspectives are as important as material ones in
explaining security behavior. This section reviews and appraises the
claims of the neorealist and constructivist perspectives.
Neorealist Explanation of State Behavior
Neorealism seeks to explain state behavior as conditioned largely by
the material structure of the international system, both deep and
the material structure of the international system, both deep and
distributional, and the placement of the state in that system.

38Because the deep structure is static (anarchy will be the ordering

principle for so long as the key actors remain sovereign states) and the
intermediate level relating to functional differentiation of units drops
out because states are like units, states respond primarily to changes in
the distribution of power. Considerations of power, and not ideas and
institutions (except those grounded in the realities of power), will
inform state behavior. The privileging of structure in neorealism,
however, does not equal structural determinism, as is often claimed by
critics (Buzan, Jones, and

 Page 58
Little 1993: 22-23). Waltz recognizes that first-and second-image
variables can and do influence state behavior and may in fact be the
immediate or most efficient cause of decisions relating to war and
peace (Waltz 1959: 232). He explicitly states that a conjunction of
system-and unit-level variables will have to be deployed to explain
individual state behavior (1979: 87, 122, 174) and that a "bothersome
limitation" of systems theories arises from the difficulty of weighting
unit-level and structural causes (1986: 343). Further, he acknowledges
that unit-level variables may cause a state to behave differently from
the behavior predicted by neorealism.
Despite these qualifications, Waltz asserts that the competitive
pressures of the international system and the survival imperative will
compel weak powers to imitate the systems, structure, and policies of
the stronger ones. Further, competitive pressures will compel
nonconforming countries to be socialized into the system.
Consequently, differences will disappear over time, and states will
display similar characteristics. In other words, the system will not
tolerate functionally differentiated units. Based on this prediction,
neorealists have argued, for example, that Japan will eventually
emerge as a "normal" power. It has also been argued that competitive
pressure and the survival imperative will compel states to behave in a
like manner. A state that repeatedly behaves differently will "lay itself
open to danger, will suffer" (Waltz 1979: 118). The structure,
therefore, is privileged, and state behavior is expected to vary more
commonly with "differences of power than with differences of
ideology, in internal structure of property relations, or in
governmental form" (Waltz 1986: 329). Waltz has argued that in spite
of differences in ideology, strategic culture, and political system, the
United States and the Soviet Union showed striking similarities in
their behavior during the Cold War because of their similar power
placement in the international system (Waltz 1993). Others, such as
Mearsheimer (1990), accord even greater weight to material structure
and move closer to structural determinism.
A second prediction of neorealism is that states operating in an
anarchical system and interested in ensuring their survival will engage
in balancing behavior, because their first goal is to maintain their
position, not to maximize their power (Waltz 1979: 121, 126, 128).

39A weaker power will seek to balance a stronger one, and the
tendency is to restore a balance that has been disrupted. Balancing can
take many forms, depending on the distribution of power in the
system. In a bipolar system, internal balancing and arms racing will be
important, whereas in a multipolar setting, alliances will be more
significant. The focus of neorealism is on major powers, particularly
the distribution of capabilities among them,

 Page 59
and it has little to say about the behavior of smaller powers.
Secondary states, according to Waltz, will tend to balance rather than
bandwagon (1979: 127), because it is the stronger state that threatens
them. Stephen Walt holds that considerations of threat rather than of
power condition state behavior and that, although the system
encourages balancing, weak powers will tend to bandwagon rather
than balance, because they "add little to the strength of a defensive
coalition but incur the wrath of the more threatening states
nonetheless" (Walt 1987: 29). It has been argued that weak powers
may also resort to hiding, free-riding, and accommodation, and that
these strategies are consistent with neorealism because their choice is
based on a rational calculation of gains and losses (Elman and Elman
1995: 186-88). This last claim implies that only irrational behavior is
inconsistent with neorealism (Schroeder 1995: 194).
Constructivism's Challenge
There are moderate and radical critiques of the neorealist logic. The
moderate version (presented by neoliberalism and commercial
liberalism) asserts that the negative effects of anarchy, posited by
neorealism as essential features, can be mitigated if not overcome.
These claims have been explored earlier and will not be repeated here
except to note that rather than claiming that power relations do not
matter, institutionalists hold that power relations alone cannot explain
variations in the patterns of international interactions. The structure of
the international system must include institutions, and the relevance of
material capabilities in explaining state behavior will vary inversely
with the degree of institutionalization (Keohane 1989: 8-9, 1993: 287-
89). Where there is a high level of institutionalization, as in Western
Europe, power will be much less relevant in explaining state behavior
than in other, less institutionalized regions. Institutions are held to be
as fundamental as capabilities in explaining state behavior (Keohane
1989: 8-9).
A more radical challenge builds on Ruggie's (1983) contention that
there is not just one anarchy (defined as a segmented realm); rather,
different principles of differentiation (for example, heteronomy in
medieval Europe, sovereignty in the contemporary world) will yield
different types of anarchy. Whether or not unlike units can coexist
depends on the principle of differentiation. Buzan (1993b: 39-41)
extends this argument to open up the possibility of a deep structure in
which the ordering principle of anarchy does not preclude the
coexistence of unlike units. Alexander Wendt and Daniel Friedheim's
(1995) constructivist explanation of informal empire may be
interpreted as lending weight to the possibility of this type of structure
even in the contemporary period. Hierarchy and unlike units can exist
(among a

 Page 60
group of states) even when the de jure principle is sovereignty and the
structure of the international system is anarchic. The logic of anarchy
among such a group of countries will be quite different from that of a
group in which, through competition and socialization, units are
driven to be alike. If unlike units attract and become "strongly glued
together because they depend on one another's different abilities and
skills" (Waltz 1986: 325), then survival among the group of states
concerned may not be problematicprovided, of course, that the
hierarchy is considered legitimate by the audiences concerned.
An even bolder and more far-reaching challenge to neorealism issues
from constructivism,

40 which contends that the cultural-institutional context is important

and has as much explanatory power as the materialist or choice-
theoretic perspectives (Jepperson, Wendt, and Katzenstein, 1996).
Constructivism makes three basic claims. One is that the structure of
the international system is social and comprises not just material
resources but also shared knowledge and state practices (Wendt 1995:
73). Material capabilities in and of themselves have no meaning; their
significance derives from shared understanding and practices.
Institutions, in an intersubjective sense, are therefore a crucial part of
the structure. Second, the cultural-institutional context affects not only
the incentives for behavior, as argued by neoliberalism, but also
identities (Jepperson, Wendt, and Katzenstein, 1996). Identities and
interests are socially contingent and not intrinsic to states. Variations
in identities are held to affect national interests and policies; changes
in the configuration of identities are said to affect interstate normative
structures, such as regimes and communities. Third, state practices
matter: they inform and are informed by structure, which is both
"medium and outcome" and can be transformed by actions of "capable
and knowledgeable"41agents. Structure and agent are mutually
constitutive, and state practice "is the core of constructivist resolution
of the agent-structure problem" (Wendt 1992). A crucial question for
constructivism is how to bring about change. Here it rests its hopes on
ideas and institutions (Wendt 1992: 410-22, 1995: 80). As identities
and interests change, they can transform international politics and
increase the possibility for peaceful change (Wendt 1995: 71-72).
Thus "anarchy is what states make of it."

From the perspective of constructivism, the causal logic of realism is

not a necessary consequence of anarchy or of the distribution of
capabilities, but rather flows from a certain set of intersubjective
understandings. Process, not material structure, has produced the
present self-help system. If the intersubjective understanding can be
changed, so can the realist logic of anarchy. Prospects for survival are
thus contingent on the shared understanding among the society of
states. For example, despite

 Page 61
the weakness of African states, international survival has not been a
severe problem for them because of the international recognition of
their juridical sovereignty Jackson and Rosberg 1982). Similarly, lines
of amity and enmity and the role of force are socially contingent.
North Korea and Vietnam, for example, are not far different in terms
of their power relationship with China, and both have common land
borders with that country. Yet North Korea, though suspicious of
China, does not view it as an enemy. Vietnam, however, fears Chinese
hegemony and has frequently viewed China as an enemy. Material
capabilities by themselves cannot explain the differences in the
international relations among these countries. An investigation of their
histories and the intersubjective understandings to which they give
rise will be much more telling.
A Case for Synthesis
The various systemic theories (neorealism, neoliberalism, commercial
liberalism, and constructivism) have often been presented as
competing and incompatible paradigms. Proponents have argued over
which is of the most utility in explaining international politics and
predicting state behavior.

42Although they serve important intellectual and professional

functions, such debates also tend to have a certain sterile and unreal
quality. The reality of international politics is complex and changing,
and it is not uniform throughout the world. No single existing theory
can adequately capture and generalize about all of reality. Even Waltz
(1986: 331) admits that "realist theory can by itself handle some, but
not all, of the problems that concern us."

Despite the claims of some neorealists, it is difficult to deny that

certain regions of the world are characterized by a high degree of
economic and other forms of interdependence and are already in or
are moving toward a situation of complex interdependence or a
pluralistic security community.43Expectations of the state and the
norms that govern interaction among states in those regions are
informed by the high degree of institutionalization that characterizes
their environment. Although anarchy is still the ordering principle, its
consequences are not those posited by neorealism, so that other
theories become relevant in explaining regional politics and security.
However, although they are useful in highlighting the flaws of
neorealism, the competing theories themselves have some serious
shortcomings and are inherently limited in their applicability. The
thesis that there can be more than one logic to anarchy is quite
persuasive and useful in explaining variations in behavior across
regions and states, but at the same time anarchy is not infinitely
malleable. Nor can constructivism predict when and why a

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discourse will become dominant or what the new hegemonic
discourse will be.

44In its present form, constructivism, though useful in terms of

explanation, does not provide a general theory of action.
Neoliberalism has focused mainly on political-economic cooperation
in the advanced industrial world, and commercial liberalism's
relevance is limited to trading states with market economies. These
categories cover relatively few states.

Understanding contemporary international politics requires complex

theories of a kind that do not yet exist. Rather than engaging in a
sterile argument as to which theory is better, a more productive
exercise will be to recognize and deploy the strengths of the
contending theories to enhance the understanding of international
politics.45Although the theories rest on some fundamentally different
assumptions and compete on many dimensions, they are not
incompatible. Neoliberalism, as noted by Grieco, can be helpful in
understanding the politics of cooperation (1993: 335). Constructivism
does not disregard material capabilities but seeks to highlight the
salience of the cultural-institutional context in explaining the
meanings attached to them. Although the position is not stated
explicitly, some realists, such as Waltz and Walt, come close to
accepting a constructivist viewpoint on some key features of realism,
such as the creation of like units through competition and
socialization, and the depiction of threats rather than imbalance in
power as the basis of alliance. Regional variations imply that no one
theory may be adequate. Different theories may have to be deployed
to explain variations across regions and statesfor example, the
development of regional integration and pluralistic security
communities in some regions, that of competitive security and self-
help in others, and the coexistence of both in yet other regions.
The analysis and explanation of security cannot therefore be limited to
any single paradigm. It can, however, begin with neorealism, because
that is the only theory to articulate a security problem. Neoliberalism
is concerned only with mitigating the problem raised by the realist
logic of anarchy. Constructivism, though it holds that there can be
more than one logic, does not specify which will prevail. Moreover,
some of the core theoretical assumptions (state is the central actor;
anarchy is the ordering principle) of neorealism, though not their
imputed consequences, have gained acceptance by policy makers. For
this reason as well, the realist paradigm provides a good starting point
for analysis. But it must not be limiting; in crucial ways, analysis and
explanation must be modified by insights provided by the other
theories. This augmentation may not appeal to purists, but the social
practice of security is not limited by any specific theory.

 Page 63

Observations
It is clear from the discussion in this chapter that the so-called
traditional definitions of security, which confine the concept to the
threat, use, or control of military force at the international level, are
unduly restrictive and misleading; they exclude critical dimensions
relating even to the core concern of political survival. It is also clear
that matters relating directly to the threat, use, and control of force are
better dealt with under the label of defense or strategic studies.
Security is a broader concept that includes defense but is not limited
to it. Security must therefore be conceptualized in a way that goes
beyond the concern with force. But this must not be done
indiscriminately, because it carries the risk of making the concept a
grab bag and further increasing its potential for political and
intellectual abuse. The analytical utility of the concept will also be
undermined. The need to conceptualize security to allow for variations
in referent, scope, and approach, while preserving its analytical utility,
presents a formidable challenge that will be taken up in the final
chapter of this study.
The critical review and appraisal in this chapter of the debate over
rethinking security suggests that the conceptualization of security
must be informed by the following considerations:
1. There can be multiple and often competing referents of
security. The specific referent will vary with the level of analysis
and the sociopolitical context. As the most attractive and most
powerful form of political organization, the state will continue to
be the primary referent of security. It is important, however, to
recognize that it coexists with or competes with other referents at
the subnational and international levels. Because of their
potential to provide the rationale for alternative political
communities, referents at the subnational level may take priority
 over the state, especially when the identity and legitimacy of the
state are contested. This is much less likely to be the case with
entities at the international level, which have a more utilitarian
and augmenting function. Their effect, at least for the foreseeable
future, will be to temper sovereignty and modify international
interactions, not to supplant the state. A partial exception may be
the European Union.
2. The bottom line for all referents is survival. Survival,
however, need not always be problematic. Whether it is so
depends on the distribution of material capabilities, on
intersubjective understandings, and on social practice. From the
perspective of the

 Page 64
state, political survivaldefined in terms of political and
territorial integrityis a minimum requirement. Political
survival may also be defined, especially by the major
powers, to include milieu goals. Political survival can be
endangered not only by military means but also, and in
some cases even more critically, by political and
sociocultural threats.
3. Challenges to political survival need not issue only from
other states; they can also come from within the state. For many
states and for many communities within them, internal
challenges may pose as grave a threat as external ones. Their
conception of security will be heavily conditioned by such
domestic considerations. It is therefore crucial to integrate the
international and intrastate security problematics.
4. The scope of security should be broadened but not
indiscriminately. The attempt to broaden the scope of security to
go beyond political survival and encompass economic,
environmental, or other nonconventional problems and dangers
is complicated and presents some fundamental challenges. To the
extent that issues or problems in these areas are political and
have zero-sum or distributional characteristicsfor example, the
goal of maintaining or increasing the position of the state
through economic growth and modernizationthey can be
accommodated by the realist conception with little or no
modification. But the inclusion of other problems poses grave
difficulties for the realist conception. These difficulties do not
imply that such issues cannot be considered as security concerns.
Rather, they must be included in such a way that security does
not encompass everything. Certain criteria must be established.
5. Competition, cooperation, and community building are all
 relevant in the pursuit of security. Cooperative strategies can be
useful in mitigating the international security dilemma under
certain conditions and possibly even overcoming it, leading to
the formation of pluralistic security communities. Cooperative
strategies will be even more relevant in the economic and
environmental issue areas. But self-help is still important. Often
a combination of approaches and instruments will have to be
deployed, even with respect to a single core value. This is the
case, for example, in dealing with security at the intrastate level,
where a wide array of political, sociocultural, economic, and
military measuressome competitive, others cooperative and
accommodative, yet others designed to build a community may
have to be deployed.

 Page 65

2
International Politics in Asia
The Historical Context
Muthiah Alagappa
T his chapter provides an overview of international politics in Asia
from about the third century B.C. to the end of the Cold War. The
choice of the starting point is deliberate: in the third century B.C., for
the first time, all but the southern part of modern-day India came
under one imperial authority during the rule of King Asoka (274-232)
of the Maurya dynasty (322 B.C.-A.D. 183) and China was unified
under the Qin (221-206) and Han (202 B.C.-A.D. 220) dynasties.
Similarly, the choice of end point is deliberate: the end of the Cold
War marked the end of the domination of Asia and its international
politics by Western powers and the emergence of a more autonomous
Asian regional system.
Tracing the origins and interactions of Asian "states" over a period of
2,000 years highlights the long histories of several Asian countries
and their interactions. The security thinking and behavior of some
contemporary Asian leaders is informed in part by their reading of
history. As Western influence recedes, there is some indication that
earlier, precolonial "national" self-conceptions, principles, and
patterns of interaction, as well as lines of amity and enmity, may
reassert themselves, though in modified form. For these reasons, a
good historical understanding is useful in contextualizing
contemporary problems and practices of security and avoiding the
pitfalls of ahistorical analysis and


 Page 66
policy. At the same time, however, one must be careful not to read too
much into history or to submit to the tyranny of history. A good grasp
of the changes and continuities in the underlying principles,
structures, and dynamics of the historical Asian interstate systems and
of their transformations over time will aid our understanding of the
emerging post-Cold War Asian regional system. Discussion of the
Asian interstate systems also provides a useful comparative
perspective for students of international politics who have been
trained essentially in the Western tradition. In addition to enriching
knowledge and broadening perspectives, a comparative approach
leads to a more enlightened interpretation of non-Western statecraft
and facilitates explanation of similarities and differences among Asian
systems and practices, as well as between Asian systems and those of
the West.
The approach used in this chapter is historical narrative, informed by
the idea of the ''system," in which the interactions of member states
are contingent upon each other. The organizing theme is transition and
transformation of Asian interstate systems. To cover 2,000 years of
history of a large number of countries in the space of one chapter is a
difficultsome would say an impossibleundertaking. The presentation
is necessarily one of broad strokes, limited to critical aspects and
developments. The task is complicated by the fact that histories are
complex and nuanced, so that some "facts" and interpretations may be
contested among policy makers as well as among scholars. This
account aims not to establish the authenticity of a certain factual
account but to provide a sense of history by tracing the broad temporal
and geopolitical context within which Asian international politics has
evolved.
Historical Asian Interstate Systems:
Subregional and Autonomous
Historically there were two distinct interstate systems in Asia: the
Sinic system in East Asia and the Indic system in South Asia. The
states in Southeast Asia, with the exception of Vietnam, adhered to
some form of Hindu-Buddhist notions of political authority, and their
interstate relations paralleled those of the Indic system. But they also
participated, though only peripherally, in the Sinic interstate system.
The Sinic Interstate System
The origins of China can be traced to the Xia dynasty (2205-1766
B.C.), although the country was not unified until the Qin and Han
dynasties. After consolidating his rule in the Chinese cultural area
(modern-day northern China), the first emperor embarked on a south-

 Page 67
ward expansion, incorporating the "barbarians" of present-day
southern China down to Guangzhou (Canton) and the northern part of
present-day Vietnam (Fairbank, Reischauer, and Craig 1978: 56-57).
He also sought to secure the northern border against the nomadic
barbarians through the construction of a single defense system based
on the Great Wall. After this period, various dynasties centered in the
northern heartland of modern-day China held sway in East Asia until
the mid-nineteenth century. At their height, the power and influence
of some dynasties reached into Southeast and Central Asia and
touched parts of South Asia.
The philosophical doctrines and institutional framework of the
Chinese political system were codified in the works of Confucius
(sixth to fifth centuries B.C.) and his disciples. According to
Confucianism, there is a preordained natural order, in which heaven is
the source of all authority and all men are subject to the will of heaven
(Nelson 1965: 3241). In theory, the emperor, who receives his
authority from heaven and is the supreme executive, has absolute
power. In practice, however, the exercise of power is constrained by
the requirement of virtuosity as well as "by tradition, precedent,
factionalism, and simple bureaucratic inertia" (Richard Smith 1994:
47). Because the natural order is a hierarchic one, inequality is a
fundamental feature of a society structured on the basis of five
fundamental relationships (Nelson 1965). Peace and order will prevail
when these relationships are fulfilled. Confucian society functions by
example and instruction, not on the basis of "lifeless" laws or the use
of coercion. Rule of law was practiced in the third and fourth
centuries B.C. but was discredited because of its tyrannical use by
rulers, resulting in its replacement by government of virtuous men.
Use of force is incompatible with Confucian theory, which requires
the "conquest" of people through the display of civic culture and
virtue, not through coercion.
The same theory was applied to the international domain. The world
was viewed as a single unit, with China as the Chung-kuo or central
country and the emperor exercising authority over all people under
heaven (Fairbank 1968b: 1-11). Belief in the superiority of China's
culture and the claim to universal kingship provided the ideological
basis of this Sinocentric international system (Schwartz 1968: 276-
90). Those who lived outside the Chinese cultural area were
considered "barbarians," which meant that intergovernmental relations
could not exist. As the barbarians became "civilized," however, the
Confucian system was extended to them. As in the domestic realm,
inequality was a fundamental feature in the international realm among
the Confucian family of nations. China presented itself as a superior
nation and as the model for

 Page 68
others to emulate, while the non-Chinese units accepted tributary
status (Fairbank 1968b). The non-Chinese units were grouped into
three concentric zones: the Sinic Zone, comprising Korea, Annam
(Vietnam), the Ryukyu (Okinawa) Islands, and, for a brief period,
Japan; the Inner Asian Zone, comprising Tibet and some of the units
constituted by the nomadic and seminomadic peoples of modern-day
Central Asia; and the Outer Zone, comprising those peoples farther
away in parts of modern-day Southeast and South Asia, and
eventually Japan and the West.
Because of the inbuilt inequality among states and the abhorrence of
law at the domestic level, there was no role for international
cooperation or law in the Chinese interstate system. The use of force
was not ruled out, but force was to be used primarily to secure the
recognition of the authority of a new dynasty or to chastise a state that
had strayed from the proper rules of conduct (Nelson 1965).
Interaction between China and the other units took place through the
system of tribute. The tributary relationship, which had cultural,
economic, and political dimensions, was a complex one; it rested not
on formal treaties between units but on implicit personal
understanding of obligation between rulers, which was not
transferable. The tributaries recognized the superiority of China, and
in return China recognized their independence, did not interfere in
their internal affairs, and had an obligation to render assistance in
times of need. China retained the right to intervene, however, on the
basis that heaven separated the territories but not the people and that
the emperor as the son of heaven had responsibility for all people
under heaven (Lam 1968: 178-79). The deep structure of this system
may be characterized as anarchic, for each unit had its own separate
territory and government, and the tributaries were not under the direct
political control of China. This anarchy, however, permitted
hierarchic relations among the units based on the ideas of universal
kingship and higher culture.
As noted by Fairbank (1968b: 11-14) and others, the Sinocentric
interstate system elaborated here is an ideal. In practice, the conduct
of Chinese foreign relations varied greatly. Yang Lien-sheng argues
that the Sinocentric world order was "a myth backed up at different
times by realities of varying degrees, sometime approaching nil"
(Yang 1968: 20). Rossabi (1983) argues that when the dynasties were
united and strong, the pattern of relations described by the Sinocentric
world order appears to have been the effective practice. During such
periods, the dynasties were expansive, insisting on hierarchy in
relations with their neighbors, rewarding compliant behavior, and
punishing "rogue" units. At other times, when the dynasties were
weak or disintegrating (that is, in the "yin" or descending phase)for
example, during the late Tang (751907) and Song (960-1279)
dynastiesdespite the formal rhetoric, greater

 Page 69
equality characterized the relations among the units in East Asia
(Ledyard 1983; Rossabi 1983). At such times the Chinese dynasties
became more flexible and pragmatic, accepting others as equals.
Adda Bozeman contends that although the idea of war was accepted
by all Chinese schools of thought as a supplement to rule by
benevolence, in practice "the principle of righteous war usually served
as a moral cloak for open acts of aggression" (Bozeman 1993: lvii).
War was crucial in bringing about the unification of China, and the
military dimension of statecraft was perfected over the centuries. The
realist writings of Sun Tzu, Lord Shang, and Han Fei Tzu, according
to Bozeman, convey the "uncompromising recognition that war and
organization for war are the mainstays of the government" (Bozeman
1993: lvii). In a similar vein, Alastair Johnston (1995: x) asserts that
there is evidence of two Chinese strategic cultures: a symbolic or
idealized set of assumptions and an operational set. The latter, he
argues, reflects "hard realpolitik" strategic culture and had a
"nontrivial impact on strategic choices in the Ming Period." The
symbolic set, according to Johnston, "is, for the most part,
disconnected from the programmatic decision rules governing
strategy, and appears mostly in the habitual discourse designed, in
part, to justify behavior in culturally acceptable terms.''
It appears that China's relations with other states were based on both
"majesty and power" (Wang 1968: 61-62). The idea of a Sinocentric
world did inform the thinking, if not the behavior, of various dynasties
until the nineteenth century (Schwartz 1968), and a Chinese world
order of sorts did operate during certain periods and was accepted as
legitimate by some, if not all, units. But force was also used with
regularity, and China's relations with its neighbors varied greatly, as
illustrated by the cases of Korea and Vietnam, both of which were
tributary states that borrowed heavily (culturally and politically) from
China.
Korea, whose origins can be traced to the second century B.C.
(Fairbank, Reischauer, and Craig 1978: 278), was subject to periodic
invasions from China and, much later, Japan, making for strong
nationalism and extreme distrust of foreigners and of dependence on
external powers (Koh 1984: 235). Nonetheless, Korea, though
suspicious of China, has generally had a positive orientation toward it.
Korean tributary relations with China during the Ming (1368-1644)
and Qing (1644 1911) dynasties have been described as the model
preferred by China (Chun 1968). This relationship was of
considerable political benefit to Korea. It ensured that China did not
interfere in Korean internal affairs, and it also helped the Korean
rulers and upper class to preserve status and power. Ming China
helped Korea in its fight against Japanese invasion in the late
sixteenth century. Also significant was

 Page 70
Korean respect for Confucianism, which carried over from the Ming
into the Qing period. At base, the tributary relationship served the
interests of the rulers of both China and Korea.
Vietnam, whose origins date to about the third century B.C., is a
different case, for several reasons. First, unlike Korea, which was
occupied by China for a relatively short period (108 B.C.-A.D. 313),
Vietnam was annexed and made part of the Chinese empire for nearly
a thousand years (111 B.C.-A.D. 939). After a long struggle it
reemerged as an independent state. Even afterward, Chinese dynasties
made several attempts to reimpose their rule, but those efforts were
never successful for long. Tired of the military cost, the Chinese
dynasties accepted a tribute relationship, which became the norm.
Second, unlike Korea, which occupies a peninsula and has a language
belonging to the Altaic family, Vietnam was less distinct from China
in terms of geography and language. It thus had a greater need for,
and more difficulty in establishing, a separate identity and its
independence. Third, and again unlike Korea, which was
geographically close to the capitals of the Chinese dynasties and had
no room for territorial expansion, Vietnam lay considerably farther
away and continually expanded southward, making contacts with
Southeast Asian empires. Vietnam was able to assert a higher degree
of autonomy than Korea (Fairbank, Reischauer, and Craig 1978: 266-
67). Finally, although Vietnamese rulers accepted the tribute
relationship, later rulers viewed themselves as "great" and set up their
own dynasty (Le dynasty, 1428-1789). The constant struggle to
maintain independence in the face of persistent attempts by various
dynasties to reimpose Chinese rule, and the Chinese perception of
Vietnam as a noncompliant, rebellious tributary state, helped shape
the legacy of Vietnam. In some periods, such as the reign of Nguyen
Van Hue (178892), Vietnamese rulers enjoyed close ceremonial
relations with Chinese rulers; but this did not prevent the Vietnamese
rulers from pursuing an independent policy to further the interest of
Vietnam, even when doing so antagonized the Chinese rulers (Lam
1968: 176-77).
Japan was part of the Sinic Zone for only a brief period. It self-
consciously borrowed heavily from Chinese culture, especially during
the ninth century. But the political and social systems that developed
in Japan were quite different from those of China (Fairbank,
Reischauer, and Craig 1978: 324-91). Some Japanese rulers sent
tribute to China; however, Japan, separated from China by the
Tsushima Straits, was never under Chinese political control.
Interaction between the two countries was minimal, due in part to the
long periods of self-imposed isolation in both countries. Nevertheless,
Japan acknowledged its enormous cultural debt to China, while China
tended to view Japan as a

 Page 71
junior member of the Chinese cultural area (Barnett 1977: 90). The
Sinocentric interstate system in East Asia lasted until the nineteenth
century, when it was penetrated and eventually destroyed by the
Western powers, as well as by an imperial Japan.
The Indic Interstate System
India, like China, has a very old cultural tradition that has been
preserved without a break to the present. The origin of the Indian
state, however, is complicated. In its present form, India is a new
state, the legacy of British colonial rule. But British rule was preceded
by several Indian empires rooted in the Indo-Gangetic heartland: the
Maurya (322 B.C.-A.D. 183), Gupta (320-540), Khaljis (1290-1320),
Tughluks (132094), and Mughal (1556-1707). At their heights, these
empires controlled much of the Indian subcontinent and at timesfor
example, during the rule of Asokawent beyond them (Allan, Haig, and
Dodwell 1934: chap. 4). Only the three south Indian kingdoms of
Chola, Pandya, and Chera (the predecessors of present-day Tamilnadu
and Kerala), which had continuous existence until the fourteenth
century, were not under the political control of the empires.
Unlike China's heartland, which expanded over time by absorbing
outlying provinces, the heartland of the Indian empires was effectively
limited to the Indo-Gangetic plains. Regional kingdoms, after being
subdued, were treated as tributaries (Allan, Haig, and Dodwell 1934:
89). Kingdoms at the frontiers acknowledged the power of the
Rajadhiraja (the great king, or king of kings) and paid homage. Those
immediately outside the frontier also felt and acknowledged the power
of the great king. Because of this system of tributary rule, as well as
the presence of several strong regional kingdoms (Andhras, Kalingas,
Marathas, and Gujaras, for example), the empires never fully digested
the outlying regions. Consequently, as the empires weakened, they
were subject to dismemberment. Each collapse gave rise to numerous
independent kingdoms, many of which were racially based, had long
histories of their own, were quite strong, and at various times
established their own regional empires for appreciable periods. The
limited expansion of the Indian heartland and the successive collapse
of empires have been attributed to, among other factors, the Hindu-
Buddhist idea of righteous conquest that forbade annexation, the
martial tradition of Indian states, the lack of an integrated and
competent bureaucracy, and geography (Basham 1954: 123-26).
Because of this pattern and the long periods of foreign domination,
initially by Muslims and then by the British, it is possible to think of
each Indian empire as distinct and to divide Indian history into Hindu,

 Page 72
Muslim, and British periods. However, as Hugh Tinker notes, these
empires and periods blend and blur and are better viewed as ebbs and
flows in a grand cycle (Tinker 1990: xvii). Like the Mongol and
Manchu conquerors of China, the conquerors of India, except for the
British, were often themselves conquered and in due course became
Indianized. Further, despite the racial, religious, and regional fault
lines, over time a cultural and civilizational unity developed
throughout the subcontinent. According to Jawaharlal Nehru, Indian
history is better understood as "some ancient palimpsest on which
layer upon layer of thought and reveries had been inscribed, and yet
no succeeding layer had completely hidden or erased what has been
written previously. All of them exist together in our conscious and
subconscious selves, though we may not be aware of them, and they
have gone to build up the complete, mysterious personality of India"
(Nehru 1994: 59). He continues: "Though outwardly there was
diversity and infinite variety among our people, everywhere there was
that tremendous impress of oneness, which had held all of us together
for ages past, whatever political fate or misfortune had befallen us."
Absorption and synthesis characterize the history of India. The
postindependence Indian leaders certainly saw themselves as
successors to the empires, including the British Raj. This accounted,
in part, for the rejection by the Hindu and some Muslim leaders of the
theory of two nations (insisted upon by the Muslim leaders who later
formed Pakistan) and their reluctance to accept the partitioning of
British India. Some leaders, like those of the Hindu Bharatia Janata
Party (BJP), seek an Indian identity rooted even more deeply in
history. Thus, it is not only possible but necessary to view India both
as the successor to a series of earlier empires and as a nation-state still
in the process of formation. India, like China, is still transforming
itself from an empire into a nation-state. The enormous differences
that set these two countries apart from others are sometimes obscured
when all countries are treated as formally equal. The security
conceptions of China and India are in some ways more those of
empires than of nation-states.
A historical view may contribute to an understanding of Indian
national self-conceptions as well as some aspects of Indian foreign
and security policies. Indian aspiration to great-power status, for
example, is rooted in part in the perceived greatness of the earlier
Indian empires, especially that of Asoka. According to Tinker and
Basham, the Asoka empire was one of the greatest of the world in its
time (Basham 1954: 50-57; Tinker 1990: 7-8), and beginning with it
Indian philosophical, cultural, and economic influence spread to many
parts of Asia. This view of Indian aspiration contrasts sharply with the
popular external view of

 Page 73
India as a poverty-stricken developing country overreaching itself for
great-power status. Some contemporary Indian security concerns
(relating to Afghanistan and Central Asia and to naval activities by
external powers in the vicinity of India) may also be traced to earlier
historical periods. Similarly, inspiration from the past may be a factor
in India's foreign relations. In the words of Nehru, who was virtually
the sole architect of Indian foreign policy until his death, "the most
important thing about our foreign policy is that it is part of our great
historical tradition" (quoted in Larus 1965: 13). Some analysts have
argued the relevance of earlier traditions in analyzing contemporary
Indian policy (Panikkar 1960: 29), while others have disagreed with
this view. Norman Palmer (1962: 3), for example, argues that there is
no continuity between ancient Hindu political thought and the
political ideas that move modern India.
In the Indic (Hindu-Buddhist) conception, the state was not viewed as
"an organism transcending its component parts," but as an extension
of the king (Basham 1954: 88). Kautilya, for example, assumes the
king to embody the six other constituent elements of the state (verses
6.1.1. and 8.2.1. in Rangarajan 1992: 119 and 141 respectively). The
exposition of his theory of foreign policy is thus grounded in the
interests and interaction of kings. Further, the divinely ordered society
transcended and was independent of the state, although the king had
the duty to protect and regulate society as well as to supervise the
economic life of the realm. The right to rule was derived through
heredity and divination. Divinity, however, did not rule out challenges
from rival contenders for political power. In theory, the ruler had
absolute power. In practice, however, the exercise of power was
constrained by the sense of accountability stemming from ethical
codes governing the conduct of kings and the sacred laws that
governed society. That a king must be just and rule according to
dharma is emphasized in nearly all Indian treatises dealing with
government. And the people had the right to rebel against oppressive
and unjust rule. The counsel of ministers and public opinion also
constrained the exercise of power (Basham 1954: 87-88). Thus,
although the concentration of power could have made for harsh
autocratic rule, in practice, beneficent rule was the norm. The Indic
ideal is peace, tranquility, and "energetic beneficence" (Basham 1954:
89-90).
The peaceful ideal did not, however, carry over to the international
arena. The ideas of a higher culture and a claim to universal kingship
that underpinned the hierarchic Sinocentric system were not
applicable to the Indian subcontinent. The cultural unity of the Indian
subcontinent made gradations on the basis of culture irrelevant. The
ideal of a

 Page 74
universal emperor ruling prosperously and righteously did exist in the
Indian tradition, though it was seldom realized (Basham 1954: 83).
Kautilya posits the eventual objective of the would-be conqueror-king
to be chakravartikshetramthe conquest of all of Bharatavarsha (i.e.,
the Indian subcontinent) and its rule in accordance with dharma. As a
goal, this made for constant struggle between states bent on expansion
and those seeking self-preservation. There was no middle way. Status
quo was difficult to maintain. War and conquest became the norm
(Scharfe 1989: 203). Power was paramount in asserting authority over
other states. This explains in part the lack of permanence of the
tributary relationships in the Indic system. An idealist tradition in
Indian thought, exemplified by Asoka, abhorred international wars,
but more commonly war was accepted as a normal activity of the
state. Even the principle of nonviolence was not deemed to forbid war
(Basham 1954: 123), which could be waged for wealth and power or
for glory. Acceptance of war, however, did not preclude peace. One of
the seven principles of foreign policy advocated by Kautilya was that
peace is to be preferred to war. (Rangarajan 1992: 546).
The geographical area of the Indic system extended from the
"Himalayas in the North to the seas in the South and a thousand
yojanas wide from the east to the west" (Kautilya, quoted in
Rangarajan 1992: 543). For several reasonsgeographic, religious, and
administrative conquest of territories beyond the subcontinent was
considered not feasible and not desirable. It is pertinent here that
Indian influence beyond the subcontinent has been predominantly
cultural and economic rather than political. The structure of the Indic
system was anarchic; in it, relative power played a central role in
interstate relations. The political realist tradition in Indian thought was
articulated in several texts, including the well-known Arthashastra
and Mahabharata. The "mandala doctrine," a key idea in the
management of interstate affairs, is based on the vijigisu (conquest-
seeking prince). It exhorts the vijigisu to seek "strength and
prosperity," to be concerned about relative power, and to become the
center of a universal system (then defined in terms of the
subcontinent). Neighbors are posited as enemies, and the enemy's
enemy as a friend and ally. Considerations of relative power made
power balancing (internal and external) a critical concern of Indian
rulers. Alliances, always temporary, were forged to defeat a common
enemy. Although the Mahabharata is an account of war among
feuding families and not states, it is representative of the Indian realist
tradition. It states: ''There is no natural enemy or friend; friends and
enemies are born out of application of political interests" (quoted in
Scharfe 1989: 204).
The Indic interstate system allowed for confidence and security

 Page 75
building among kings, but within the realist tradition. Kautilya posits
the peace treaty, the policy of nonintervention, and the practice of
hostage taking and giving as instruments to be deployed to build
confidence among kings (verse 7.17.1,2 Rangarajan: 581). Like the
Sinic system but for different reasons, the Indic system did not allow
for the concept of international law; however, rules of war, including
treatment of the defeated, were articulated in the Mahabharata,
Arthashastra, Thirukural, and other texts. International cooperation
was also not a feature of the Indic system.
The Indic system may have ceased to function with the advent of
Muslim rule in India, and it certainly died out with the advent of
British rule. Except for Nepal and Bhutan, the states that interacted
with the Indian heartland have now either become part of India or
ceased to exist. The ancient kingdom of Nepal had extensive religious,
cultural, and economic interaction with Indian empires but remained a
separate kingdom, although it acknowledged the suzerainty of Indian
emperors and kings at various timesfor example, during the rule of
Samudragupta (A.D. 335-75). Nepal was a vassal state of the
Chalukya kingdom in the eleventh century (Allan, Haig, and Dodwell
1934: 116-18).
Like Nepal, Sri Lanka had a precolonial existence. Although it
embraced Buddhism during the visit of the brother of King Asoka in
the second century B.C., Sri Lanka had no political interaction with
the Indian empires. It did, however, interact continuously for about
two thousand years with the Tamil kingdoms in southern India. The
other large South Asian statesPakistan and Bangladeshare
postcolonial Islamic states; the dynamics of their interaction with
India are of recent vintage.
Although the Indic system ceased to function several centuries ago,
contemporary international politics in South Asia is not far different
from that articulated in the Arthashastra, despite the addition of
several new actors, the recent origins of the causes of conflict, and the
involvement of external actors. Suspicion and enmity characterize the
bilateral relations of nearly all neighboring countries in the region.
Struggle, competition, and power balancing have been common. War
is accepted as an instrument of state policy. Peaceful coexistence and
cooperation have been rare. Moreover, abstracted from the specific
actors and dynamics, the Indic system seems more congruent with the
contemporary anarchic international system than does the hierarchic
Sinic system. The Indic system is of intellectual interest, and its study
can sensitize the student of international politics to an early Asian
counterpart of Western political realism.

 Page 76
International Politics in Southeast Asia
The precolonial states in Southeast Asia were modeled essentially on
the Indian tradition, and their international politics was in many ways
similar to that of the Indic system. International politics in Southeast
Asia that is of contemporary relevance dates from about the tenth
century. There were earlier kingdoms (Coedes 1971: 1-80), but data
about them and their interactions are rather sketchy, and contemporary
Southeast Asian states do not trace their origins to those kingdoms.
During the tenth to fourteenth centuries, mainland and island
Southeast Asia became more distinct from each other. A key factor
contributing to this distinction was the southward migration of the
Vietnamese, Thai, and Burman peoples (which began much earlier but
accelerated during that period) and their eventual domination of
mainland Southeast Asia (Tate 1971).

1Island Southeast Asia was not affected by the migration. Its

population remained predominantly of the Malay stock, and Hindu-
Buddhist cultural influences held sway until the arrival of Islam in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Further, the mainland kingdoms
were primarily agricultural and continental, whereas those in island
Southeast Asia were both land and sea powers for whose prosperity
seaborne commerce was vital.

Continental Southeast Asia

The international politics of mainland Southeast Asia until the arrival
of Western colonial powers was rooted in the formation, expansion,
and struggle for domination of the Vietnamese, Thai, and Burmese
kingdoms, which took place largely at the expense of the Khmer
(Cambodian) empire (Silverman 1974: 54-59). From its founding in
802 to the thirteenth century, the Khmer empire was the mightiest and
wealthiest state in Southeast Asia. Beginning in the fourteenth
century, however, the Khmer empire was challenged in the West by
the ascending Thai kingdom in Ayuthia. To counterbalance the Thais,
the Khmers at first welcomed the Vietnamese, who were embarked on
a southward expansion (Tate 1971: 437). Continued Vietnamese
expansion, however, became a threat to Cambodia. Vietnam
eventually absorbed large parts of eastern Cambodia (much of
modern-day South Vietnam, which Cambodians call Khmer Krom),
arousing deep hatred and fear on the part of the Khmers toward the
Vietnamese. Since the early eighteenth century the primary problem
for Cambodian rulers has been maintaining their independence and
indeed survival in the face of persistent Thai and Vietnamese
encroachments on their territory and the struggle between those two
countries for overlordship of Cambodia. But for the

 Page 77
French intervention, Cambodia would most likely have suffered
further losses and might even have ceased to exist.
Although formed much later by the southward migration of the Thai
people, Laos suffered a similar fate. The initial Laotian kingdom at
Lang Chang (Luang Prahbang) eventually embraced all of present-day
Laos. Beginning in the eighteenth century the kingdom disintegrated,
opening the way for influence by its powerful neighbors, Siam
(Thailand) and Vietnam. Like Cambodia, Laos became a buffer and a
target of competition for overlordship between Vietnam and Thailand.
Again like Cambodia, Laos was saved by French intervention from
further losses and possibly from extinction.
The Thai kingdom in Ayuthia, like Vietnam, was expansionist from
its founding in 1350. In addition to bringing the other Thai kingdoms
under its vassalage, the Ayuthia kingdom reached eastward to conquer
the Khmer capital of Angkor in 1432 and expanded southward to
reach the shores of the Malay peninsula. This southward expansion
was checked by the Chinese protection offered to the Malacca
sultanate in the early fifteenth century. In the West, the Ayuthia
kingdom was engaged in a bloody struggle with the Burmese for
almost three centuries, eventually defeating them in 1785. Thereafter,
the Burmese competition receded, and it disappeared altogether with
the British occupation of Tenasserim. Like the Vietnamese and the
Thais, the Burmese, as they migrated south, came into conflict with
the Mon Kingdom in the lower part of Burma and with the Shans
(Thai-Chinese people) in the northeast, who had risen to power after
the fall of Pagan to a Mongol army in 1287. The Burmese defeated the
Shans in the 1550s and eventually emerged victorious over the Mons
in 1755. That victory led to the establishment of the Konbaung
dynasty, which lasted until its annexation by Britain in 1885.
The international politics of mainland Southeast Asia of this early
period has left some enduring features. One relates to the security
dynamic that links Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, which
form the geopolitical core of mainland Southeast Asia (Alagappa
1991a: 1316). Thailand and Vietnam, as the two dominant states, view
each other as rivals and compete for power and influence in this
subregion. Cambodia and Laos, as weak powers and the targets of
competition, have become preoccupied with survival. Deep
resentment and distrust characterizes relations among all these
countries. French colonization of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia
halted this dynamic, but only temporarily. With the granting of
independence to Cambodia and Laos, and the liberation and
unification of Vietnam, the old security dynamic resurfaced.

 Page 78
Second, although the Thai-Burmese rivalry in the west is much less
relevant today than in the past, deep mistrust continues to characterize
the bilateral relations of the two countries. The relationship is further
complicated by the presence in Burma, close to the border with
Thailand, of several Thai-Chinese minority groups (e.g., Shans,
Karens) who have been at war with Rangoon for much of the
postindependence period. Bangkok has supported these minority
groups at various times, both for their value as a buffer and to bring
pressure to bear upon Rangoon.
Third, the pattern of migration, domination, and displacement has
produced, in nearly every state, several indigenous minorities that
either can lay historical claim to separateness or have affinities to
populations in neighboring countries. This is true even though each
mainland Southeast Asian state is controlled by a dominant population
group. This situation heightens the tensions and conflicts that
complicate the domestic and international politics of these countries.
Fourth, competition and conflict to achieve domination and to
demonstrate superiorityas in the Indic systemappears to have been the
predominant mode of interaction among the three key states, each of
which has tried to expand its own power and influence. In the process
they either annexed or established hierarchic relations with kingdoms
in their immediate vicinity, while engaging in competition with other
dominant powers in areas where their interests conflicted. Alliances
among them or with external powers were not a feature of the
interaction among the dominant states during this period, although
they allied with the smaller states to secure control over those states
and to prevent their domination by other powers. The smaller states of
Cambodia and Laos appear to have engaged in the practice of
alliances to ensure their survival. There were no international
institutions for mutual recognition, coexistence, or cooperation.
Maritime Southeast Asia
Unlike their counterparts on the mainland, island Southeast Asian
states have little historical continuity as political entities. The
predecessors of Indonesia and, to a lesser degree, Malaysia were the
central political actors. Although a large number of kingdoms existed
in the different islands, only those rooted in Sumatra and particularly
in Java were able to control significant parts of contemporary
Indonesia. The Sri Vijaya empire, based in Sumatra, appears to have
been dominant from about the eighth to the twelfth century. It was
essentially a maritime commercial power with control over the critical
Straits of Malacca. At its height, Sri Vijaya's power extended from the
Isthmus of Kra to central

 Page 79
Java. It eventually gave way to the Javanese empire of Majapahit,
itself the successor to a series of earlier Javanese kingdomsSailendra,
Mataram, Kediri, Singasaridating to the seventh century.
Majapahit, unlike Sri Vijaya, was a land and sea power with a strong
agricultural foundation. It was a center of culture and civilization as
well. Majapahit began to decline during the fifteenth century. Its
decay, unlike the quick collapse of Sri Vijaya, was gradual, lasting
more than a century. Majapahit was succeeded by the state of
Mataram and subsequently by the states of Surakarta and Jogjakarta,
which survived as separate entities until the last days of Dutch rule.
The royal house of Jogjakarta played an important role in the struggle
for Indonesian independence from Dutch rule. For these and other
reasons, the kingdoms and empires located in Java, which has always
been the most populous island of the area, may be seen as the
predecessors of the modern Indonesian state. The Javanese heritage
appears to have a bearing on the national self-conception of
contemporary Indonesia. The kingdoms located in Sumatra may be
viewed as having played a secondary and ephemeral role in the
evolution of the Indonesian state.
The only other empire to have arisen in the maritime subregion was
that of the Malacca sultanate, founded in 1403. It was a commercial
empire, in many ways similar to the earlier Sri Vijaya. The decline of
Majapahit, the resurgence of Chinese influence under the Ming
dynasty and the Ming rulers' interest in protecting the trade routes
through the Southeast Asian straits, and Malacca's location in the
critical Straits of Malacca all facilitated the growth of Malacca from a
small fishing village to the largest port in Southeast Asia with several
vassal states. Although some Malay states in peninsular Malaysia can
lay claim to longer existence, none rose to the prominence of Malacca
or the Johor-Riau empire that succeeded Malacca upon its conquest by
the Portuguese in 1511. Malay leaders view the Malacca sultanate as
the classical period of their culture and civilization, much as the
kingdom of Sukothai is viewed by the Thais.
The other three statesSingapore, the Philippines, and Brunei were
nonexistent or else peripheral to the international politics of maritime
Southeast Asia. Singapore has no historical record as a separate
kingdom. Except in the south, there is no record of any major
kingdom in the history of the Philippines. It was constructed as a state
by Spanish and later American imperialism. Brunei, unlike Singapore
and the Philippines, can trace its political history to the fifteenth
century, when it emerged as a flourishing sultanate, reaching its zenith
after the fall of Malacca. At its height Brunei controlled all of present-
day East Malaysia, and its influence extended to the Sulu archipelago,
now part of the

 Page 80
Philippines. The sultanate then declined and lost control over
Sarawak, Labuan, and British North Borneo. Fearing further loss and
possible extinction, Brunei became a British protectorate in 1888.
Because of the lack of historical continuity, little of the precolonial
international politics of the maritime subregion has contemporary
relevance. Many of the kingdoms that interacted with the Javanese
kingdoms and empires have disappeared or become part of Indonesia.
Consequently, the traditional competition between land-based
Javanese kingdoms and sea-based Malay kingdoms in Sumatra, for
example, appears now to have more impact on the internal politics of
Indonesia than on the international politics of the region. It may,
however, be possible to link some aspects of the international
behavior of contemporary Indonesia and Malaysia and the tensions in
their bilateral relations to the historical rivalries and tensions between
Javanese (Majapahit) and Malay (Malacca, Sri Vijaya) kingdoms and
the attempt by the former to control the latter and, more generally, to
be the dominant power in the subregion.
External Powers and Southeast Asia
Situated astride critical waterways as well as overland routes between
China and India (and later the Middle East), Southeast Asia has
always been exposed to outside influences (McCloud 1995). But it
was never passive and was not colonized until the arrival of the
Western powers. Kingdoms and empires in both India and China
engaged in trade with the region and were concerned at various times
with the safety of navigation in the Southeast Asian straits.
Indian influence in Southeast Asia was largely philosophical, cultural,
and economic. Political influence spread through Southeast Asian
borrowings of ideas and political and legal systems, and sometimes
through marriage. Except for the Cholas in the eleventh century, no
Indian kingdom exerted direct political or military influence in
Southeast Asia. But Southeast Asian kingdoms such as Sri Vijaya saw
the value of cultivating good relations with the Indian (Chola)
kingdoms; the conversion of the ruler of Malacca to Islam was
intended in part to preserve the trade with Indian (Gujerati) traders,
who by then had become Muslims.
Chinese influence in Southeast Asia was not so much cultural (except
for Vietnam) as economic and to some degree also political. But the
degree of political influence must not be exaggerated. Except for
Vietnam, the Southeast Asian states did not belong to the Sinic Zone.
Many Southeast Asian kingdoms sent tribute to China, but tribute
meant neither acceptance of the Chinese moral order nor
subordination

 Page 81
to China (McCloud 1995: 94). Often, tribute was simply expedient,
serving the domestic political interests of Southeast Asian rulers
against rival claimants to power, or economically beneficial. But there
were occasions when tribute to China did aid local rulers against
Chinese invasion (Ayuthia's regular tributes, for example, saved it
from being destroyed during the Kublai Khan invasion) or provide
relief from foreign pressure (as in the case when the Malacca sultan
confronted Thai pressure). But such instances were few and far
between. Tributary relations between Southeast Asian countries
(except Vietnam) and China did not carry the same meaning and
obligations as those between China and the states in the Sinic Zone.
The long interaction of China and India with Southeast Asia was
brought to a halt by the arrival of the Western colonial powers.
The Colonial Interregnum: Transition and Transformation of Asian
States and Interstate Systems
Western intrusion into Asia began in the early sixteenth century. By
1896 all of South and Southeast Asia, except for Nepal and Thailand,
was under European colonial rule. Western political intrusion into
East Asia began in the early nineteenth century. In the course of the
next hundred years, China lost control over its tributary states and
suffered political, commercial, and territorial encroachments by the
Western powers and Japan. By the early twentieth century it was
reduced to semicolonial status and Manchuria, Korea, and Taiwan
were colonized by Japan. Western political penetration and
domination had three major consequences. First, it ended the
autonomous subregional interstate system in East Asia (the Indic
system having ended earlier). Second, it contributed to the rise of
Japan and to the deep-rooted suspicions and enmities that characterize
the subregion dominated by Japan. Finally, it transformed the nature
of Asian political units and integrated them into the global
international system dominated by the West.
End of the Chinese World Order
The two crucial bases of the Chinese world orderclaim to higher
culture and universal kingshipwere substantially undermined by the
nonacceptance by the Western powers of the cultural superiority of
China, the rise of Japan as a great power, and, internally, the weakness
of the Qing dynasty.
Initially the Western powers sought to cooperate with China by
drawing it into a multistate system. Their demands were limited to
diplomatic equality and commercial opportunity (Fairbank,
Reischauer,

 Page 82
and Craig 1978: 454). But as the power of the Qing dynasty
weakened, the Western powers engaged in imperial acquisitions. The
uncertain boundaries of China and its vague claims to suzerainty made
its tributaries (Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, Vietnam, Korea, and areas in
Central Asia) fair game for competition and acquisition. Russia
encroached upon Chinese territories and tributaries in Central Asia,
France colonized Vietnam, and Korea became the object of
competition among China, Japan, and Russia that led eventually to its
annexation by Japan. The Japanese defeat of the Chinese navy in 1894
resulted in Taiwan being handed over to Japan. More significantly, it
inspired a new round of competition and imperial ambitions on the
part of Western powers, this time at the expense of China itself. All
the Western powers, and later Japan, acquired "spheres of influence"
in China that became quasi-colonial, threatening the Qing dynasty
with extinction. The inability of the Qing dynasty to respond
effectively to Western pressure, to defend Chinese interests in the
tributary states, or to quell regionalism within China compelled it not
only to concede equality to the Western powers but in fact to submit
to an inferior status.
The rise of Japan and its attempt to create under its domination a
Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere challenged the centrality of
China in East Asia. For several reasons, Japan was better able than
China to cope with the Western powers, and rose quickly from "semi-
colonial status under the unequal treaties to become a great power and
ally of Britain" (Fairbank, Reischauer, and Craig 1978: 648). Further,
in the latter capacity, Japan sat on the victorious side of the Versailles
Conference and picked up German colonial possessions in East Asia
and the Pacific. Through the Washington Conference in 1921-22,
Japan sought to preserve its status, its territorial gains, and the military
status quo in the Pacific. Rising Japan posed a graver challenge for
China than did the Western powers. Unlike them, Japan was
indigenous to the region, and in the Chinese view it was a subordinate
state. Japan, however, not only sought equality with the Western
powers but also attempted to replace China as the central power in
East Asia. Despite its eventual failure in this attempt, the rise of Japan
as a great power implied that uncontested Chinese domination of East
Asia was no longer tenable.
Unable to cope with Western and Japanese imperial designs, and
confronted with acute internal problems, the Qing dynasty collapsed,
bringing about the end of the Chinese world order and plunging China
into warlordism and civil war. China and the rest of East Asia were
irretrievably drawn into an international system dominated by
Western norms. The integration of East Asia into the international
system was furthered by the rise of Japan and its membership in the
club of Western

 Page 83
great powers. China was compelled to behave internationally as one
among equals. It has been argued that the Nationalist and Communist
governments that followed the Qing dynasty acted on the basis of a
system of nation-states (Schwartz 1968: 284-88) and that, for the most
part, their goal was a strong Chinese nation rather than the restoration
of a Chinese world order. Others, however, citing Mao Zedong,
contend that a China-centered world order persists in the thinking of
Chinese leaders. Benjamin Schwartz (1968: 284) is extremely
skeptical of such claims, arguing that the traditional Chinese notions
of world order have been fundamentally undermined. Our own view is
that China, for the present, has come to accept a global international
system in which it is one of the great powers. With regard to Asia, the
traditional Chinese worldview persists, but in a modified form and
alongside the formal egalitarian system. Beijing seeks to become the
crucial power in the management of Asian affairs. It cannot be
doubted that Mao and his successors have sought to recover the
greatness of China and to establish its "proper" place in East Asia and
the world (Funabashi, Oksenberg, and Weiss 1994).
The unequal treaties that were forced upon China during the
18421943 period and the accompanying scramble among the Western
powers (Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and the United States) for
spheres of influence in China, as well as the Japanese ambitions that
threatened China's political and territorial integrity, have left a deep
imprint on Chinese leaders. Mao wrote in 1939: "In defeating China
in war, the imperialist states have taken away many Chinese
dependent states and a part of her territory. Japan took away Korea,
Taiwan and Ryukyu islands, the Pescadores, Port Arthur; England
seized Burma, Bhutan, Nepal and Hong Kong; France occupied
Annam and even an insignificant country like Portugal took Macao"
(quoted in Jain 1959: 106-7). China, therefore, is not satisfied with the
territorial and political status quo and is extremely sensitive to norms
and actions that may infringe on its territorial integrity and political
autonomy. Developments during the "century of humiliation"
contributed to a deep fear and hatred of imperialism, and to the rise of
Chinese nationalism. Subjection and humiliation, coupled with the
internal weakness and disunity that prevailed during this period,
underlie the emphasis of Chinese leaders on a united and strong
Chinese nation.
Finally, Japan, like China (but for different reasons), had difficulty in
conducting international relations with other Asian countries on the
basis of equality. According to Maruyama, an awareness of equality in
international affairs was totally absent and Japanese leaders viewed
international relations in terms of the premises of national hierarchy.

 Page 84
''Consequently when the premises of national hierarchy were
transferred horizontally into the international sphere, international
problems were reduced to a single alternative: conquer or be
conquered. In the absence of any higher normative standard with
which to gauge international relations, power politics (became) the
rule" (Maruyama 1963: 140). A hierarchic worldview underscored
Japan's effort to dominate East Asia. The Chinese belief in
superiority, as noted earlier, was rooted in the ideas of universal
kingship and a higher culture, and backed by material power. The East
Asian order under Chinese domination, when it existed, was at least in
part a moral one. This, as well as the absence of contending powers,
may account for its persistence over some two thousand years. Japan,
on the other hand, while desirous of becoming the dominant power in
East Asia, could not articulate a satisfactory ideology for its
domination of the region. Several rationalescontinentalism, pan-
Asianismwere advanced to justify Japanese imperial policy in Asia,
but none had broad appeal domestically or in the target countries
(Iriye 1967; Mayo 1967). Further, Japan, unlike China, was not
economically self-contained. The lack of primary resources was a key
factor in the Japanese imperial drive that led to the colonization of
Manchuria, Korea, and Taiwan. Japanese colonization differed from
that of the West in that it sought to turn the colonies into sources of
industrial strength, whereas Western nations sought to perpetuate
underdevelopment. Japan's domination of East Asia was short-lived.
Nevertheless, it implied that China could no longer expect to be the
uncontested hegemon in the subregion and that a hierarchic order with
a single center of power and authority was no longer tenable in East
Asia. China and Japan would have to come to terms with each other.
This continues to represent a tremendous challenge, because the two
states have no history of coexistence as great powers. The situation is
complicated by Japan's history of aggressive behavior during its great-
power period.
Imperial Japan and Animosities in East Asia
Japan's concerns at the outset of Western intrusion were security from
the Western powers and acceptance by them as an equal. Imperialism
and domination were later goals, which came to be viewed as essential
to its great-power status. Japanese security (defined to include
economic security) was held to require control over Korea and
Formosa (Taiwan). Tokyo's attempt to open up Korea and draw it
away from China in 1867 led to Sino-Japanese rivalry in Korea and
eventually to the military defeat of China in 1895. Under the Treaty of
Shimonoseki, China ceded to Japan Taiwan, the Pescadore Islands,
and the Kwantung peninsula in Manchuria; recognized the
independence of Korea; and

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negotiated a commercial treaty with Japan that gave Japan the same
privileges enjoyed by the Western powers in China.
Japan's triumph alarmed Russia, which also had designs on Korea and
Manchuria. With the backing of France and Germany, Russia forced
Japan to give up the Kwantung peninsula, which Russia appropriated
for itself in 1898 under a 25-year lease. A later Russian attempt to
take over all of Manchuria provoked mutual suspicion and enmity
between Japan and Russia, erupting in the Russo-Japanese War, in
which Japan routed Russia on land and at sea. The Treaty of
Portsmouth, signed in 1905, recognized Japan's paramount interest in
Korea, restored Chinese sovereignty and administration in Manchuria,
and gave the Russian lease on the Kwantung peninsula to Japan. Free
of all foreign competitors, Japan made Korea a protectorate in 1905.
Five years later, following a vigorous suppression of widespread
nationalism, Japan annexed Korea. Japanese colonial rule, which
lasted 40 years, decapitated the Korean political and social order and
was a bitter experience for the Koreans.
Japan's victories over China and Russia enhanced its prestige among
the Western powers, which began to show a decidedly pro-Japanese
attitude, embodied in the revision of the unequal treaties. By the early
1920s Japan had achieved its twin goals of security and equality. But
the interconnected developments of the Great Depression and the rise
of militarism set Japan on an imperialist course, beginning with an
initially successful but eventually terrible and costly war in China.
The refusal of the Chinese nationalist government to recognize the
special importance of the northern Chinese provinces for the security
of Japan's continental empire led eventually to the Sino-Japanese war
and the setting up of a pro-Japanese puppet government in Nanjing in
1940. This development and the wanton slaughter in Nanjing created
deep resentment and apprehension in China about Japan, especially as
a great power.
Japan's policy in China violated the agreement reached at the 192122
Washington Naval Conference.

2Its quest for a Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere through the
capture of the colonial possessions of Britain, Holland, and France
upset the balance of power in East Asia and conflicted with the
interests and policies of the United States and Britain. Japan's alliance
with Germany, the principal problem country for the United States
and Britain, aggravated the situation. The Japanese attack on Pearl
Harbor brought a declaration of war from the United States and
eventually resulted in Japan's defeat by the Allies.

Several effects of Japanese behavior during the first half of the

twentieth century have relevance today. First, it created deep
resentment and apprehension of Japan in China and Korea, sentiments
that strongly condition contemporary attitudes of these countries
toward Japan.

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Second, the competition among China, Japan, and Russia for control
over the Korean peninsula reinforced Korean nationalism and
xenophobia. Third, Russo-Japanese competition for power and
influence in Northeast Asia during this period contributed to those two
countries' negative perceptions of each other and accounts in part for
the slowness of improvement in their bilateral relations despite the
end of the Cold War. Fourth, Japan's attempt to dominate East Asia
and its attack on Pearl Harbor left a strong imprint on the U.S. attitude
toward Japan. Although Japan is a close ally, the U.S.-Japan alliance
is touted as the most important pillar of American strategy for
regional security, and Washington supports and encourages a bigger
political and security role for Tokyo, the United States will not
willingly accept Japan as an independent great power. Fifth, Japan's
defeat and the severe suffering of its people, particularly from the
atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, deeply marked
Japanese societyparticularly attitudes toward the Japanese state,
militarism, and warcontributing to strong pacifism.
Taken together, these consequences have severely curtailed the
international orientation and role of post-World War II Japan, and
they also affect the conduct of international politics in Northeast Asia.
The Japanese interregnum also gave an unintended boost to the
liberation of Southeast Asian and South Asian countries from Western
colonial rule.
Transformation of Political Units
International politics in South and Southeast Asia during the colonial
era, with a few minor exceptions, was an affair of the colonial
governments, which took their directives from the metropolitan
capitals in Europe. As such it is of little contemporary relevance.
Colonial rule and its liquidation, however, left some enduring
legacies. Foremost among them is the transformation of the political
units from kingdoms and empires into modern nation-states.
Precolonial states in Asia despite differences between Sinic and
Indian versions, as described abovewere in essence extensions of
kings and emperors who derived their right to govern from heaven or
heredity, rather than from the people. Power in these states tended to
radiate outward from the palace and capital, waning with distance so
that it was subject to contestation at the frontiers by local kings and
chieftains as well as by other centers of power. Boundaries were not
clearly demarcated. Physical barriers (mountain ranges, seas, deserts,
wilderness) marked off territories and in some cases isolated one
center of power from another. Monopoly of force and sovereign
jurisdiction over the entire kingdom were not common, especially in
South and Southeast Asia. Interstate relations were a matter of
relations between individual rulers.

 Page 87
Colonial rule and the struggle against it contributed to the rise of the
norms of nation, nation-state, and sovereignty in Asia. These Western
norms have taken root among the postcolonial "national" political
elites. Although the ideological and territorial bases of states, as well
as the legitimacy of regimes and incumbent governments, are the
objects of contestation in several countries, the nation-state has
become the unit of international relations in Asia. Sovereignty and
egalitarianism have become key principles in the conduct of
international relations. The experiences of the colonial
perioddomination and exploitation by colonial powers, treatment as
inferior people in their own lands, perceived obstruction by Western
powers of their struggle for independencealso strengthen their
attachment to the principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity, and
noninterference in domestic affairs.
The specific political units that exist today and their boundaries are
another legacy of colonial rule. Several of these units are new states
(Pakistan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore) that had no earlier
existence as separate political entities. Several others (Cambodia,
Laos, Brunei) owe their continued existence to colonial rule. Although
the Indian and Indonesian heritages include earlier empires, the
present construction of those states is largely a product of British and
Dutch colonial rule, respectively. Similarly, the boundaries of such
states as Nepal, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and
Burma are a product of colonialism.
By privileging certain existing units and imposing arbitrary
boundaries, colonial rule contributed to the ethnic and racial diversity,
and hence the artificiality, of many states. Admittedly, much of the
diversity is a product of earlier migration, but just as colonial rule
terminated such unregulated movements, it also froze the existing
population patterns. Similarly, colonial rule halted the cycle of rise,
fall, renewal, and succession of kingdoms. Thus, several kingdoms
and peoples (the Tamils in Sri Lanka, outlying regional kingdoms in
India, the Pattani in southern Thailand, the Moros in southern
Philippines, outer island kingdoms in Indonesia, and the many
minorities in Burma) were "permanently" trapped as parts of other
nation-states. Colonial rule encouraged new migration from India and
China to Sri Lanka, Burma, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia, and
from Vietnam to Laos and Cambodia. These movements further
complicated the racial makeup of the receiving countries.
Finally, by ending the autonomous subregional Asian interstate
systems and transforming the political units, colonial rule paved the
way for the integration of the Asian states into the global international
system. Although an Asia-wide regional system could not and did not
emerge

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under colonial rule, such rule, and especially the nationalist struggles
against it, did contribute to notions of Asian identity and solidarity.
The actual emergence of an Asia-wide system was due primarily to
the global ideological-military rivalry between the two superpowers
and its manifestation in Asia.
The Cold War: Emergence of an Asia-wide Regional Security System
An Asia-wide regional security system emerged, for the first time in
history, during the Cold War. The intense zero-sum competition
between the two superpowers created connections among the Asian
subregional systems that emerged after the end of colonial rule. The
new Asia-wide system was rather loose and clearly subordinate to
competition at the global level. The dynamics of this regional system
were driven by three distinct but interconnected sets of rivalries and
conflicts. One was the global rivalry between the United States and
the Soviet Union that provided the strategic framework and
integrating dynamic for much of the international politics in Asia. The
rivalries and conflicts involving the two superpowers and the three
major Asian powersprincipally the Sino-American, Sino-Soviet, and
Sino-Indian conflictsconstituted the second layer. The third dynamic
consisted of the competition, conflict, and cooperation among the
local powers at the subregional level in Northeast, Southeast, and
South Asia, overlaid by the rivalries among the major powers.
Superpower Competition: The Strategic Overlay
The origins of the Cold War in Europe and its extension to Asia are
well documented (Gaddis 1982; Iriye 1974; Reynolds 1994) and will
be recounted here only briefly. By 1947-48, the United States and the
Soviet Union had begun to perceive each other as the principal
security threat. The United States, which emerged from World War II
as the global hegemon with the greatest power to influence the
strategic environment in Asia, viewed the "loss" of China, the
conclusion of the Sino-Soviet alliance in early 1950, and Chinese
intervention in the Korean War with Soviet material support as
confirmation, despite some contrary evidence, of the thesis of a
Soviet-led monolithic communist movement intent on world
domination. In the U.S. view, the Soviet Union was the principal
enemy and China, believed to be under Soviet control, was the
principal communist threat in Asia. The outbreak of the Korean War
appeared to confirm several conclusions of the National Security
Council Memorandum 68: that interests are indivisible, so that

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all interests are vital, and that any further shift in the balance of power
in any part of the world could upset the entire structure of postwar
international relations (Gaddis 1982: 109-10). Expansion of Soviet
power must therefore be blocked by all means short of direct war, and
effort must be made to induce a retraction of Soviet control and
influence. With the outbreak of the Korean war, the Truman
administration extended to Asia this zero-sum strategy of containment
with emphasis on military power.
Japan, which until then had been the primary enemy, came to be
viewed as the cornerstone of the American strategy to contain the
Soviet Union and China in Asia. The creation of a stable, friendly, and
economically powerful Japan that was clearly subordinate to and
dependent on the United States became a key American goal
(Cumings 1993: 4152). Following the signing in San Francisco of the
Japanese Peace Treaty in September 1951, the United States and
Japan concluded a bilateral security treaty. Reversing the earlier
policy that had called for the demilitarization of Japan, the treaty
required Tokyo to assume greater responsibility for its own defense.
America's new Japan policy had the implicit goal of containing Japan
as well. To block communist expansion, the United States sought to
draw as many Asian states as possible into alliances. It contracted
security treaties with the Philippines (1951), South Korea (1953),
Taiwan (1955), Thailand and Pakistan (through the Southeast Asia
Treaty Organization [SEATO], 1954), and Iran (1959). Further, the
United States unilaterally extended protection to South Vietnam,
Cambodia, and Laos after the 1954 Geneva agreements. The U.S.
"defense perimeter" in Asia stretched from Japan through Southeast
Asia and around India to the Persian Gulf; it was described at the time
as the "Grand Crescent."
The goal of blocking and rolling back communism was uppermost in
the Asia policy of the United States. All other concerns, such as
facilitating national self-determination, were subordinated to that goal.
Thus, the United States intervened on behalf of or gave moral and
material support to noncommunist factions in the civil wars that raged
in China, the Korean peninsula, Vietnam, Laos, the Philippines,
Indonesia, Burma, and Pakistan (Wilcox 1972: 247-72). Similarly, the
United States supported noncommunist states in local and regional
conflicts. The United States was initially hostile to neutral and
nonaligned states on the ground that their neutrality was immoral and
short-sighted (Martin 1962: xvii-xix). That stance, however, was
subsequently softened. By the time of the Kennedy administration the
United States no longer viewed a policy of independence and
nonalignment as inimical to American interests, although it by no
means approved.

 Page 90
The Soviet Union, for its part, renewed its ideological hostility against
the capitalist West in the immediate postwar period (Daniels 1984:
120-45). At the founding conference of the Communist Information
Bureau (Cominform) in 1947, the Soviet Union framed the world
situation as a bitter contest between two camps: the "socialist camp"
and "American imperialism" (Daniels 1984: 145-48). Asia did not
figure in this Soviet worldview until 1947, when an aggressive line
replaced the notion of peaceful coexistence. Frustration with the lack
of progress in Europe and a desire to capitalize on revolutionary
struggles in China, Vietnam, and Indonesia intensified the Soviet
attention to Asia (McLane 1966: 367-71). But several years passed
before Moscow actually followed through on its formal articulations.
In any case, interest in Asia did not match the Soviet focus on Europe
throughout the Stalin era.
Soviet policy in Asia under Stalin was driven primarily by realpolitik
considerations and limited largely to Northeast Asia. In return for
entering the war against Japan, Stalin, in a secret agreement with
Roosevelt and Churchill in Yalta, had extracted several concessions in
the Far East. They included the preservation of the status quo in outer
Mongolia, the cession to the Soviet Union of the Kuril Islands, and
restoration of the Russian rights in China lost to Japan after the Russo-
Japanese War.

3Immediately after World War II, following a Soviet-sponsored

plebiscite in 1945, Mongolia became an independent country and
entered into a ten-year pact of mutual assistance with Moscow (Lach
and Wehrle 1975: 22-23). In Korea, in accord with an understanding
reached with the United States, the Soviet Union occupied the
northern half of the peninsula in 1945. In 1948 it created the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) under the leadership
of the Russian-trained Kim I Sung, who brought North Korea into line
with Soviet policy.

Soviet policy toward China was less clear. Unlike the United States,
which had sponsored Nationalist China in the international
community and accepted it as one of the four big powers, the Soviet
Union was reluctant to concede such status to China. Its policy toward
the ongoing civil war in China was designed to fulfill Soviet political
and economic goals. Ideology was not a consideration. Throughout
the civil war, the Soviets displayed ambivalence toward the Chinese
Communists (Lach and Wehrle 1975: 46-49). But communist victory
in China changed their attitude. In the Soviet view, that victory
enhanced the prospects for communist success elsewhere in Asia.
Further, an alliance with China as the junior partner would ensure
continued Soviet leadership of the international communist movement
in Asia (McLane 1966: 369-70). It would also help secure the treaty
rights that the Soviet Union had won from the Chinese Nationalist
government and prevent Chinese de-

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mands for boundary revision. Finally, it would strengthen the Soviet
defense of its eastern flank from the threat posed by the United States,
which was now firmly entrenched in Japan. For these reasons of
ideology and realpolitik, Moscow entered into a 30-year treaty with
Beijing.
In South and Southeast Asia, the Soviet Union expressed support for
communist parties and for the ongoing struggles in Indochina and
Indonesia, but it was not actively engaged in these regions. The Soviet
attitude toward countries like India and Burma that opted for a
nonaligned policy was decidedly negative and hostile, on the ground
that these countries "slandered" the USSR by equating it with U.S.
imperialism (McLane 1966: 355-56).
The Soviet Union's Asia policy changed substantially under
Khrushchev. Unlike Stalin, Khrushchev wanted détente with the
United States at the global level, but he also wanted to increase Soviet
influence in Asia by reducing Western and Chinese influence. He thus
adopted a more active stance in Asia by participating in the 1954
Geneva conference and providing material support for the socialist
struggle in Vietnam. Under Khrushchev, the earlier hostile policy
toward neutral and nonaligned countries was reversed; those states
were actually wooed, making for improved relations with India,
Burma, Afghanistan, and, briefly, Indonesia. These policies were
continued and strengthened under Kosygin and Brezhnev. Over time,
in addition to its interest in Northeast Asia, the Soviet Union became
more active in South and Southeast Asia.
Although the Soviet-American competition waxed and waned in the
course of the next four decades, the basic features of the competition
remained unchanged and provided the framework, or strategic
overlay, for much of the international politics in Asia.
Major-Power Interaction: Shifting Alliances and Alignments
In the early stage of the Cold War, the United States and Japan allied
against the Soviet Union and China, while India opted for a
nonaligned policy. As noted earlier, the United States reversed its
Japan policy and concluded a bilateral security treaty with Tokyo. For
a number of reasonsincluding the strong antimilitarist and antinuclear
bias among the Japanese body politic and the desire to concentrate on
economic developmentTokyo accepted and indeed welcomed the
security relationship with the United States. The Japanese, however,
viewed the rights granted to the United States under the 1952 treaty as
unequal and an outgrowth of the American occupation (Sneider 1982:
26-27).

4The United States, for its part, wanted to maintain its military bases
in Japan but recognized that such presence must be for mutual benefit
and on terms acceptable to Japan. The Japanese and American
concerns at the

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intergovernmental level were addressed through several compromises
that were later codified in the 1960 U.S.-Japan Treaty of Mutual
Cooperation and Security and the 1969 treaty that reverted Okinawa
to Japan but allowed the continued operation of U.S. bases.
The idea of the Japanese state as the agent and provider of security
was opposed by several strong groups in the Japanese body politic,
particularly the socialists and the left. These groups also opposed the
1952 security treaty. Their opposition had several bases: the claim that
the Japanese state was a continuation of the prewar political and
bureaucratic elite that had led Japan on the path of militarism and war,
the strong pacifism in Japanese society, and the political and legal
barriers imposed by the peace constitution. These groups argued for
internationalism and neutralism. The tensions between the Japanese
government and the public over Japan's defense effort, its security
relationship with the United States, and the continued stationing of
American troops in Japan grew more vehement after the conclusion of
the 1960 treaty and continued into the mid-1960s. Such domestic
opposition caused the government to tread carefully on issues of
security. Nonetheless the Japanese government was comfortable with
the security arrangements that in effect enshrined Japanese security
dependence on the United States and committed the United States to
defend Japan but not vice versa. Tokyo came to see the bilateral treaty
as the cornerstone of its security and foreign policy.

5By the mid-1960s the treaty was accepted as a given on both sides of
the Pacific.

In the case of the Sino-Soviet alliance, the initiative was taken by

Beijing. Weak and vulnerable, the People's Republic of China (PRC)
in its early years was mainly concerned with regime and national
security (Barnett 1977: 20-32). The U.S. policy of containing
international communism, the virtual American nuclear monopoly,
and U.S. interventions in Korea, the Taiwan Straits, and later
Indochina were viewed as threatening the Chinese Communist regime
and preventing the unification of China. The United States was
therefore viewed as the principal threat.6Further, Mao shared the
ideology and worldview of Stalin. Endorsing the two-camp thesis,
Beijing accepted the ideological and military leadership of the Soviet
Union in international affairs and emulated its developmental model.
The Soviet Union provided much-needed economic and technological
aid. For these reasons, China decided to "lean" toward the Soviet
Union. The Sino-Soviet alliance was the mainstay of Chinese foreign
policy for about a decade.
Beginning in the mid-to late 1950s the Sino-Soviet relationship
encountered tensions (Zagoria 1962), and the alliance became a dead
letter by about 1962-63. From that point until its alignment with the
United

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States in the early 1970s, China followed an independent course.
Differences in ideological and strategic outlook accounted for the
Sino-Soviet rift, whose beginnings are usually traced to 1956.
Concern with nuclear conflict led Khrushchev to advocate peaceful
coexistence with the United States. The Soviet Union argued that war
was no longer inevitable and that the transition to socialism could be
peaceful. Mao opposed this "revisionist" line and argued for a more
militant worldwide struggle. China was concerned that the softer
approach of the USSR would compromise the Chinese Communist
regime as well as national goals like the recovery of Taiwan. The
bilateral relationship was strained further by the Chinese perception
that the Soviets failed to support them and betrayed China's national
interests in the 1958 offshore island crisis and in the border dispute
with India that became public in 1959. Soviet backtracking on
assistance in the development of Chinese nuclear weapons and the
drying up of Soviet economic aid added to the strain. At the same time
the Soviet Union was concerned about irrational behavior by China
that might lead to war with the United States. It saw Chinese tensions
with India as undermining Soviet Third World policy. China's
abandonment of the Soviet developmental model also caused
resentment in the USSR, contributing to the cutback in Soviet
economic aid.
From about 1962 the Soviet Union and China engaged in hostile
competition to secure the allegiance of communist parties and
communist states in all parts of the world. When the war in Vietnam
intensified and there was a real danger of U.S. intervention on a large
scale, China did not heed the Soviet call for united action. Despite the
fear of a military clash with the United States, China decided to
follow an independent course in supporting North Vietnam. From
about the mid-to late 1960s China was at odds with the Soviet Union,
the United States, India, and Japan. This was the period of Cultural
Revolution, intense domestic power struggle, and "angry
isolationism."
Of even greater consequence for Sino-Soviet relations was the border
tension that surfaced in the early 1960s and became a dispute
contributing to military buildup along the long Sino-Soviet border.
Chinese fears mounted as the Soviet Union's enormous military power
gave it the option of initiating a major action. The Soviet occupation
of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and the Brezhnev doctrine of limited
sovereignty alarmed the Chinese. Two serious military clashes
occurred in 1969, and the Soviets hinted at the possibility of a nuclear
strike. By 1969 each country had begun to view the other as a crucial
threat. For China, the Soviet Union replaced the United States as the
principal security threat. China then sought alignment with the United
States to balance the Soviet Union, while the Soviet Union took
measures within and

 Page 94
outside of Asia to isolate China. These steps included the 1969 Soviet
proposal for an Asian collective security scheme (clearly directed
against China) and the 1971 treaty with India.
Unlike the PRC, which chose to ''lean to one side," India opted for
nonalignment. The policy of nonalignment was grounded in idealism
as well as considerations of power (Subrahmanyam 1976: 104-7).
Nehru had a distaste for power politics, which he saw as productive of
tension and conflict (Nanda 1976a). But he was aware that power is a
key factor in international politics, although it may be true that in
practice (as opposed to formal statements) he did not accord it
sufficient weight. Nonalignment was based also on the belief that
India had the potential to become a great power, together with the
recognition that it was not one as yet. India was too big to become a
satellite, so it would have to preserve autonomy in foreign policy and
decide each issue on the merits. Despite the Indo-Pakistani war in
1947, India did not perceive any immediate external threat to its
national security.
Based on these considerations, India sought to cooperate with the
United States, the Soviet Union, and China on the basis of equality,
without entering into any alliance. But this approach was spurned by
all three major powers. All, for reasons mentioned earlier, were
hostile to the policy of nonalignment at the outset of the Cold War.
India's refusal to participate in the containment policy contributed to
poor Indo-American relations during the 1947-60 period, as did U.S.
support for Pakistan. Indo-American relations improved during the
Kennedy administration, and the United States provided much-needed
assistance during the 1962 border war with China.

7For reasons including India's persistence with nonalignment and U.S.

pressure to negotiate on the issue of Kashmir, the improvement was
not sustained.
Some have argued that Nehru had apprehensions about Communist
China (Subrahmanyam 1976: 107-8). In practice he emphasized
cooperative relations to "disarm [China's] fears and suspicions" in the
hope that China would become a peaceful neighbor. Bilateral relations
appear to have been fairly cordial until 1954, when the two countries
signed an agreement that proclaimed the "Panchsheel doctrine." The
Chinese occupation of Tibet, and especially the border dispute that
became public in 1959, caused strains in the bilateral relationship. But
even after 1959, Nehru ruled out the possibility of a Chinese invasion
of India.
The 1962 border war resulting in India's defeat was a turning point,
leaving a deep imprint on the Indian political psyche and shaping
India's international politics. The idealist strain in nonalignment,
though still maintained in form, yielded in practice to power politics.
China became

 Page 95
India's principal security concern. There were several dimensions to
the Indian perception of the Chinese threat. One was military, focused
on the border dispute. A second aspect was concern over Chinese
support for Pakistan. In addition to providing political and massive
military support for Pakistan, China threatened India with war on a
second front, particularly in 1965 (Barnds 1972: 183-208). Third,
China exploited and, in the Indian view, aggravated tensions between
India and its other neighbors. Fourth, Chinese inroads into South Asia
undermined the Indian quest for preeminence in the subregion and
abroad. Finally, China incited revolts within India and lent support to
border tribes in northeastern India (Barnds 1972: 220). These
concerns contributed to a substantial military buildup. Chinese nuclear
tests precipitated the quest for an Indian nuclear force. From the
perspective of China, apart from the border dispute, Indian alignment
with the Soviet Union magnified the Soviet threat. Competition for
influence in several neighboring states and the longer-term prospect of
an Asian strategic rival also played a role.
Mutual concern with China was a critical factor in the dramatic
improvement in Indo-Soviet relations, which strengthened steadily
from 1954 onward. From the perspective of the Soviet Union,
improved bilateral relations facilitated its attempt to become a key
player in South Asia (the Tashkent Agreement of 1965 between India
and Pakistan, for example, was brokered by the USSR). For India, this
relationship, while helping to counter the Chinese threat, did not
seriously affect the autonomy of its foreign policy. Indo-Soviet
relations were strained at times during the 1965-69 period, when India
on several occasions failed to support Soviet initiatives (for example,
the Soviet proposal for an Asian collective security scheme). Still,
improved relations culminated in the 1971 Treaty of Friendship and
Cooperation.
Between 1968 and 1971 international politics in Asia entered a new
phase. Global bipolarity and Soviet-American competition continued
to remain fundamental features, and Japan continued to ally with the
United States. But China and India changed their policies and
alignments, the former tilting toward the United States to address the
threat from its former ally, the Soviet Union, and India turning to the
Soviet Union to counter the Chinese threat. The Sino-Soviet conflict
and, in a more limited way, the Sino-Indian conflict became defining
features of Asian international politics. Although détente
characterized the bilateral relations of the two superpowers at the
global level, this was less true in Asia. In several respects, the
positions in Asia of the United States and the Soviet Union were
reversed in this new phase. The United States, no longer perceiving a
monolithic communist threat and facing strong domestic opposition to
the Vietnam War, was intent on reducing its

 Page 96
commitments in Asia. It decided to "Vietnamize" the war in Vietnam,
not to become involved in ground combat elsewhere in Asia, and to
encourage Asian countries to assume greater responsibility for their
own defense. These new directions were articulated in the 1969 Guam
doctrine. As it reduced its own direct role, the United States came to
view China as an important strategic ally in the containment of the
Soviet Union.
At the same time the USSR was engaged in enhancing its position and
role in Asia, in competition with China. A key element in Soviet
strategy was further strengthening relations with India. Building on
the 1971 treaty, the two countries continued to improve their bilateral
relations in spite of change of government in India. In Southeast Asia
the Soviet Union underwrote the Vietnamese invasion and occupation
of Cambodia (1978) as well as the subsequent Vietnamese attempt to
dominate all of Indochina. The following year the Soviet Union
invaded and occupied Afghanistan. Combined with the Soviet military
buildup in the Pacific (Solomon and Kosaka 1986), these
developments intensified Soviet-American competition, putting an
end to détente. For its part, China viewed the Soviet policies in Asia
as tightening the encirclement of China, which heightened the Sino-
Soviet conflict. To contain the Soviet threat, China, in addition to
aligning with the United States, provided support for opposing groups
and states involved in the Cambodian and Afghan conflicts. China
also supported Pakistan, undertook a punitive war against Vietnam,
and emphasized the development of its strategic nuclear forces. Soviet
policies and actions contributed to a common apprehension among
China, the United States, and Japan that deepened Sino-American
relations as the United States and Japan provided much-needed
assistance for the Chinese modernization program that had begun in
1979.
The 1969 Guam doctrine and the Nixon shokkus (shocks: his visit to
China and elimination of the gold standard in 1971) were perceived
by Japan as reflecting the decline of the Pax Americana; these events
introduced a credibility gap with regard to U.S. commitment to the
security of Japan. The erosion of the IMF-GATT system and the
197374 oil crisis (OPEC shokku) also increased Japanese concern
over economic security (Akao 1983: 1-14). Together, these various
developments compelled Japan to reassess its security policy. The
treaty with the United States continued to be critical, and Japan took
several measures to strengthen the bilateral security relationship.
These steps included increasing its contribution to U.S. forces
stationed in Japan, facilitating American access to Japanese dual-use
technology, deploying Japanese official development assistance
(ODA) to serve American strategic

 Page 97
interests, and enhancing U.S.-Japanese defense cooperation under the
1978 guidelines forJapan-U.S. cooperation (Defence Bulletin 1986:
43). In addition, Japan began to increase its own defense capability
under the 1976 National Defense Program Outline. In 1981, under
U.S. pressure, it extended its defense responsibility to protect sea
lanes out to 1,000 nautical miles. These measures were primarily
designed to fill gaps and complement American policy in an effort to
strengthen U.S.-Japan security relations, rather than to make Japan
independent of the U.S. security umbrella. Japanese prime minister
Yasuhiro Nakasone exemplified this approach when he attempted to
depict Japan as an integral part of the Western alliance system.
Thus, from the early 1970s to the end of the Cold War, Japan and
China were allied or aligned with the United States against the Soviet
Union, while India was aligned with the USSR. But these "blocs"
were quite loose, and threat perceptions varied from state to state.
Although they disapproved of India's Soviet alignment, the United
States and Japan did not consider India a threat, and the reverse was
also the case. The principal security concern of the United States and
Japan was the Soviet Union, whereas India focused on the threat
posed by China. Each "bloc" also suffered internal tensions and
contradictions that were temporarily subordinated to the principal
security concerns of the time. India's quest for autonomy did not jibe
with dependence on the Soviet Union. Although India endorsed the
Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 1978and in the process alienated
the ASEAN countriesit did not support the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan; rather, it called for the withdrawal of all forces from
Afghanistan, including the Soviet forces. Beginning in 1982 Indira
Gandhi and later Rajiv Gandhi sought to improve relations with the
United States, Britain, France, and China in an attempt to diversify
India's foreign relations. Nonetheless, the Soviet Union remained a
key strategic partner.
China was not happy with its junior-partner status in the alignment
with the United States but accepted it because of the need to counter
the Soviet threat. Beginning in 1982, China moved toward a more
independent foreign policythe result of unhappiness with the Reagan
administration's strong anticommunist rhetoric and support for
Taiwan, combined with China's own reassessment of the Soviet threat
(Zhu 1989: 42-44). The goal of reunification, specifically the issue of
Taiwan, and China's aspiration to equality with the United States
became more significant with the termination of the Cold War.
China's deep, historically informed animosity toward and distrust of
Japan was subordinated during the Cold War to concerns over the
Soviet threat and the desire to secure Japanese assistance for China's
moderni-

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zation program. Further, Japan's security dependence on the United
States reduced its prospects as an independent power. From the
Japanese perspective, a rising China aligned with the United States
against the Soviet Union was more acceptable than a rising China that
might seek to dominate the region. The end of the Cold War, the
continuing rapid growth of China, and Japan's quest for a larger
political and security role brought the fears of both countries to the
fore.
The development of Japan, first as a major economic power and then
as an economic superpower, undermined several key premises of the
U.S.-Japan security treaty.

8Japan sought greater equality in the relationship, which the United

States conceded at the level of rhetoric while in practice continuing to
treat Japan as a junior partner. Japan, however, was now required to
bear a higher share of the "burden" of security. Further, bilateral
economic relations in the 1970s and 1980s were acrimonious. The
meteoric economic rise of Japan and the American public perception
that it had occurred at the expense of the United States contributed to
public animosity and the identification, though only briefly, of Japan
as a greater threat than the Soviet Union. These difficulties, however,
were managed in the context of the overriding goal of containing the
Soviet threat. The end of the Cold War and the disappearance of the
Soviet threat (although Japan continued to view Russia with
suspicion) compelled both the United States and Japan to reappraise
and redefine their bilateral security relationship. Although Japan has
attempted to broaden its options, particularly by engaging in global
and regional multilateral forums such as the United Nations, the
forum for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, and the ASEAN
Regional Forum, the security treaty with the United States continues
to be the cornerstone of Japanese security policy. Growing
apprehension with regard to China and the dynamism of the American
economy have in fact made for a strengthening of bilateral security
ties. Both countries reaffirmed their commitment to the treaty in April
1996 and have adopted revised guidelines for defense cooperation that
increase the profile of Japan in maintaining regional security.

To sum up, during the Cold War none of the Asian powers could
stand on its own.9India's initial attempt to do so was unsuccessful. All
three of the major Asian powers chose alliance or alignment with one
of the two superpowers. The inability of the Asian powers to stand on
their own, as well as the predominant postwar position of the United
States and its containment policy, contributed to the deep penetration
and domination of Asian international politics by global bipolarity and
the dynamics of the superpower competition. Still, the increasing
geostrategic weight of China contributed to the development of a
strategic

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triangle in Northeast and Southeast Asia, and a strategic quadrangle in
South Asia. Despite the enormous increase in the economic and
technological power of Japan, that country did not become an
independent strategic player and so had little effect on the strategic
situation except to boost the position of the United States.
The interaction of the two superpowers with the Asian powers
interconnected the subregional systems in Northeast, continental
Southeast, and South Asia in that order of priority, contributing to the
emergence of an Asia-wide regional security system. Maritime
Southeast Asia was much less affected by the conflict between the
two superpowers. One effect of the interpenetration of the security
dynamics at the various levels was the transformation of the dynamics
of subregional security systems and the escalation of local and
subregional conflicts. This was most evident in Northeast and
continental Southeast Asia.
Northeast Asia: Conflicts Among Divided States
As the interests of four major powers (the United States, USSR,
China, and Japan) intersected in Northeast Asia, the security dynamics
of the subregion reflected the competition and conflict among those
powers. These larger issues were superimposed on the local conflicts
between the divided states in the Korean peninsula and across the
Taiwan Straits.
The Korean problem was in many ways the central concern in
Northeast Asia throughout the Cold War. Implementation of the
agreement reached at the 1945 Moscow Conference to create a free
and independent Korea was disrupted by the onset of the Cold War
and the subsequent establishment of the Republic of Korea (ROK) in
South Korea, backed by the United States, and the communist
Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) in North Korea,
backed by the Soviet Union. With the outbreak of the Korean War in
1950, the United States intervened militarily on behalf of South
Korea. This intervention by American forces was perceived as a threat
to the national security of China, causing it to intervene in support of
North Korea. The war was suspended in 1953, but Korea remained
divided.
Strongly nationalistic, the two Koreas have been committed to
unification, but only on their respective terms. Since 1953 they have
engaged in intense ideological, economic, military, and diplomatic
competition. Inter-Korean dialogue began in the early 1970s, and
several bilateral declarations and agreements have been signed.
Dramatic changes have taken place in the two Koreas' domestic
politics (from authoritarian to democratic rule in South Korea and
generational leadership change in North Korea). There have also been
changes in their economic and

 Page 100
military capabilities: for South Korea, from economic basket case to
membership in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD); for North Korea, considerable weakening,
possibly bordering on collapse. These developments, however, have
not altered the deep mutual distrust and competition that continues to
characterize relations between the two Koreas.
International involvement in the conflict, however, has changed
greatly in the last decade. Until the mid-1980s the probability of
major-power involvement in a war in the Korean peninsula was high.
The USSR and China provided strong political, economic, and
military backing for the DPRK. South Korea was strongly backed by
the United States and became a U.S. ward. Growth in economic and
military strength, as well as democratic change, made the ROK a
much more independent actor, but it continued to rely on the United
States for its security. Beginning in the late 1970s the ROK engaged
in what has been described as a Northern Policy (or nordpolitik)
aimed at preventing war in the Korean peninsula by normalizing
relations with the Soviet Union and China (Park 1993: 218-44).

10 Nordpolitik was given a boost by Gorbachev's rise to power in the

Soviet Union, leading to normalization of Soviet-ROK relations in
1990. Normalization of Sino-ROK relations was slower but did
eventually occur in 1992.

These changes, reinforced by the end of the Cold War, have reduced
the conflict essentially to the inter-Korean level. The potential for
escalation involving the competitive military engagement of the
United States, China, Russia, and possibly Japan has been
considerably reduced compared to the Cold War period. Despite
intermittent credibility gapsfor example, during the Carter
administrationthe U.S. commitment to the security of South Korea
remained strong. But the same cannot be said of the Soviet or even the
Chinese commitment to North Korea. A net effect has been the
isolation of North Korea, which has become more militant and has
threatened to exercise a nuclear option. In spite of its localization,
however, the Korean conflict continues to engage the interests of the
United States, Japan, China, and Russia.
The Taiwan conflict had its origins in the Chinese civil war but
became enmeshed in the Cold War. Since 1949 both the PRC and the
Kuomintang (KMT) have claimed to be the legitimate government of
China, including the province of Taiwan. The PRC was committed to
liberating Taiwan, while the KMT, at least in its rhetoric, was intent
on recovering the mainland. Tension has characterized the
relationship across the Taiwan Straits since then, leading to periodic
crises (1953, 1955, and 1958). Initially the Chinese threat was to the
KMT regime, but with democratization in Taiwan and the passage of
political power to

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native Taiwanese, the Chinese threat has been transformed into a
national security concern for Taiwan. The PRC views the conflict as
an issue of territorial integrity and national dignity, and considers it a
domestic concern of China. The PRC's attempt to use force to liberate
Taiwan was forestalled when the United States decided to back
Taiwan and signed a mutual defense treaty with it in 1954. Since then
the PRC and Taiwan have engaged in diplomatic competition to gain
international recognition. That competition was eventually won by the
PRC in the early 1970s, when the United States decided to improve
relations with the PRC and when the PRC acquired the Chinese seat at
the United Nations.
Under the 1972 Shanghai Communiqué, the United States did not
challenge the view that Taiwan is part of China but held firmly to the
view that unification was to be achieved peacefully. Despite the
formal downgrading of diplomatic and security relations between the
United States and Taiwan, the U.S. factor continued to be critical.
Under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act the United States continued to
sell arms to Taiwan, and U.S. support for Taiwan increased under the
Reagan administration. China, for its part, although it dropped the
term "liberation," reserved the right to use force under certain
circumstances (Lai To Lee 1988: 188). There have been several
proposals for unification (Lai To Lee 1988: 167-74), and bilateral
economic relations between the PRC and Taiwan have improved
dramatically. But the underlying dispute remains unresolved and has
become more complicated with democratic transition in Taiwan and
generational leadership change in Beijing. This conflict, more than the
Korean issue, may still have the potential to engage China and the
United States in a competitive manner.
Continental Southeast Asia: Struggle Against Colonial Rule and the
Revival of Historical Animosities
Like Northeast Asia, mainland Southeast Asia was witness to
competitive engagement of the major powers from 1945 onward,
resulting in three Indochinese wars (1945-54, 1959-75, and 1978-91).
Vietnam's struggle for independence and unification lay at the heart of
the first two conflicts.
In the first war the protagonists were the communist Viet Minh and
France, which was seeking to reimpose its colonial rule after World
War II. With the extension of the Cold War to Asia, the United States
backed France. The Soviet Union did not initially support the Viet
Minh. In fact, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV), which
was proclaimed in 1945, was not recognized by the USSR until
January 31, 1950. Even

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after recognition, Stalin did not publicly support the DRV, although
after the Korean war the Soviet Union did provide covert military aid
through China. The First Indochina War was brought to a conclusion
by the 1954 Geneva agreements, which terminated French colonial
rule and recognized the sovereignty of Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam.
The agreements, however, were implemented only with respect to
Cambodia. Competition among rival factions caused political
fragmentation and conflict in Laos. An international agreement in
1962 to neutralize Laos was not successful, and that country became
enmeshed in the Second Indochina War. The U.S.-backed South
Vietnamese government refused to comply with the provision in the
1954 agreement to hold national elections to determine the future of
Vietnam, a decision that transformed the provisional division of
Vietnam along the seventeenth parallel into de facto statehood for
South Vietnam.
The DRV then committed itself to the goals of liberating South
Vietnam and uniting Vietnam under communist rule. Still aiming to
contain international communism and believing in the domino theory,
the United States provided political, military, and economic assistance
to the South Vietnamese government and later intervened directly.
The Soviet Union and China, to counter the U.S. intervention and to
compete with each other, supported North Vietnam. China viewed the
U.S. intervention in Indochina as a threat to its own national security.
As the Sino-Soviet conflict intensified, North Vietnam tried initially
to mediate and then stayed clear of the conflict. Eventually it moved
closer to the Soviet Union, in part because of the historically rooted
belief that China would seek hegemony and therefore would not want
to see a unified Vietnam (Pike 1987: 87-89). Communist victories in
Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos brought the Second Indochina War to a
conclusion in 1975. Vietnam was unified in 1976.
These victories did not end the conflicts in Indochina; in fact, they
reignited historically rooted hostilities and ambitions. Cambodia's
radical nationalism and Vietnam's desire for dominance in Laos and
Cambodia intensified border disputes between Vietnam and
Cambodia, leading to the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in
December 1978 and the installation of a pro-Vietnam puppet
government in that country. This action and Vietnam's earlier treaty
with the Soviet Union angered China, which undertook a punitive war
in February-March 1979. China later supported Thailand as well as
rival factions in Cambodia. Vietnamese domination of Laos and
Cambodia effectively eliminated the traditional buffers, and Soviet-
backed Vietnamese military presence in those two countries was
viewed by Thailand as dramatically altering the local balance of
power in favor of Vietnam and constituting a threat to

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Thai national security (Alagappa 1987a: 78-147). To counter that
threat, Thailand reinforced its alignment with China, which had begun
in 1975, and sought to reinvigorate its security relationship with the
United States as well as to harness ASEAN to its cause. Thus the
historical Sino-Vietnamese hostility and Thai-Vietnamese rivalry
became engaged in the Vietnamese-Khmer conflict. Soviet support for
Vietnam further increased China's anxiety, thus adding the Sino-
Soviet dimension to the conflict. American concern over the Soviet
military buildup in the Pacific and growing Soviet influence in Asia,
as well as concern for Thai security, added the Soviet-American
dimension to the conflict. Thus, a local conflict with deep historical
roots became engulfed in broader regional and global conflicts.
Change in Soviet policy beginning with Gorbachev (Alagappa 1990b:
321-50) led to the easing of the Soviet-American and Sino-Soviet
conflicts, permitting an end to the Cambodian stalemate that had
lasted almost a decade (Alagappa 1990a: 266-71). These
developments put pressure on Vietnam and the Cambodian factions to
move toward a settlement. Changes in the policies of Cambodian
leader Sihanouk in 1987 and of Thailand in 1988, combined with the
pressure of the U.N. Security Council, eventually brought the thirteen-
year-old conflict to a settlement in a U.N.-sponsored peace conference
in October 1991. This, however, was a settlement, not a resolution of
the many deep-seated suspicions and fears that linger in the subregion
(Alagappa 1993: 466-67).
South Asia: An Indocentric Subsystem
The liquidation of British rule in South Asia gave birth to a system
that, by virtue of history, geography, and disparities in size and power,
was Indocentric. That characteristic became even more pronounced
with the collapse and truncation of Pakistan in 1971, leading to the
creation of Bangladesh. Formally the South Asian system is
egalitarian, but in practice there are huge disparities in almost every
dimension. This asymmetry is a crucial factor in the international
politics of South Asia. India's quest for leadershipeven hegemonyand
the refusal of the smaller states (with the support of some external
actors) to acknowledge its dominant position, as well as their fear of
domination, intensified the many bilateral conflicts in the region. This
made for a zero-sum situation in which balancing rather than
bandwagoning or accommodation became the norm. The only country
that could have engaged in limited internal balancing was Pakistan,
but after its break-up in 1971 no country in the region could
individually balance India. Even acting collectively and there were
numerous hurdles, some insurmountablethe other

 Page 104
countries in South Asia could not balance India. This made balancing
through alliance with external powers the only option, opening the
way for the involvement of China, the Soviet Union, and the United
States and connecting South Asia to the larger Asian regional and
global systems.
The conflict between India and Pakistan is the central feature of the
South Asian subsystem. From its inception Pakistan's primary
concerns were regime and national security, the liberation of Kashmir,
and equality with India (Barnds 1972: 68-82). India was determined to
hold onto Kashmir and did not accept Pakistan as an equal. Further,
some Indian leaders thought that Pakistan would not survive long as a
nation. Thus, from the start, India became the primary concern for
Pakistan, the issue to which all other matters were subordinated. For
India, although Pakistan was a concern, it was not critical until
Pakistan's alliance with the United States in 1954 and later its
alignment with China. The disputes between India and Pakistan led to
three wars (1947, 1965, and 1971). There have been intermittent
dialogues between the two, leading to several bilateral accords.

11 The basic issues in dispute, however, remain unresolved. Bilateral

relations continue to be dispute-ridden and conflict prone, although
war has been averted during the last 25 years.

Pakistan has followed a security-through-strength approach ever since

independence. Unable to match India on its own, Pakistan sought to
redress the imbalance though alliance with external powers. Uneasy
about the Soviet push toward the Persian Gulf and disenchanted with
India's nonaligned policy, the United States came to view Pakistan as
critical to the Western defense of the Middle East. This led to
Pakistan's membership in SEATO (1954) and the Central Treaty
Organization (CENTO) or the Baghdad Pact (1955). Pakistan,
however, deployed U.S. arms and aid to compete with India. The
souring of Sino-Indian relations and U.S. assistance to India during
and after the 1962 border war provided the pull and push for a long-
lasting Sino-Pakistani alignment, the origins of which can be traced to
1956. The Sino-Indian conflict and Sino-Pakistani alignment
accelerated the improvement in Indo-Soviet relations.
Following its dismemberment after the disastrous 1971 war, Pakistan's
security worries became acute and it's government also became deeply
committed to the liberation of Kashmir. As U.S. support became more
limited and conditional, Pakistan moved closer to China. With the
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Pakistan regained its strategic
importance for the United States and once again became the recipient
of U.S. arms and aid. But with the end of the Cold War, the United
States began to adopt a more balanced approach, treating India as a
regional power.

 Page 105
Sino-Indian relations also improved, although the substantive issues
remained unresolved. These developments raised fears in Pakistan,
accelerating its nuclear program. Pakistan also sought to solidify its
relations with China, while trying simultaneously to improve relations
with the United States.
Like Pakistan, although to a much lesser degree and much less
successfully, Nepal has sought to balance India by involving China in
its affairs. India has sought a special relationship with Nepal, as
embodied in the 1950 security treaty between the two countries. But
successive Nepali governments have sought to emphasize equality
rather than the special relationship preferred by India. To counter
India, Nepal improved relations with China and opted for what it calls
an equidistance policy. In India's view, the Nepali connection to
China has the potential to undermine India's security. Issues of
contention in Indo-Nepali relations include the 1950 security treaty,
Nepal's peace zone proposal, and mass migration in both directions
(Tiwari 1989: 129-39).
Postindependence Indo-Sri Lankan relations were relatively cordial,
although from time to time Sri Lanka perceived India as a security
threat. Since the early 1980s the perception of this threat has been
focused on Indian support for and possible intervention on behalf of
the Sri Lankan Tamils. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)
have been engaged in armed struggle for an independent homeland in
the north and east since 1981. Despite its many attempts to attract
international attention and support, Sri Lanka has not been successful
in its attempt to balance India and consequently has accommodated
Indian concerns by implicitly acknowledging Indian predominance.
Following the failure of Indian mediation and peacekeeping efforts,
the two countries signed a bilateral agreement in 1987 in which India
agreed not to allow its soil to be used for terrorist activities against Sri
Lanka, while Sri Lanka agreed to consult with India before employing
foreign military-intelligence personnel and not to allow Sri Lankan
ports to be used to the detriment of Indian security (Tiwari 1989: 139-
43).
Maritime Southeast Asia: An Indonesia-centric Subsystem
The liquidation of colonial rule in maritime Southeast Asia resulted in
a subsystem centered on Indonesia. The huge disparity in size
between Indonesia and its smaller neighbors (Malaysia, Singapore,
and Brunei), its national self-conception as a major state and its quest
for a commensurate position in subregional and regional affairs, and
the apprehension these created in the other states influenced the
security dynamics of the subregion in the postcolonial period
(Alagappa 1991a: 17-22). Indonesia under Sukarno viewed the
formation of Malaysia

 Page 106
(comprising Malaya, British North Borneo [Sabah], Sarawak, and
Singapore) as a neoimperial plot, which it sought to ''crush" in a
confrontation with Malaysia that lasted from 1963 to 1965.
A second, related security dynamic stemmed from the survival
concerns of tiny Singapore and Brunei, both much smaller than either
Indonesia or Malaysia. Singapore, which became part of Malaysia in
1963, separated and became independent in 1965. The process of
separation was bitter and colored bilateral relations for about two
decades. Singapore's primary international concern in the early
postindependence phase was ensuring survival in a Malay world that
was hostile to it. Although Brunei is a Malay-Muslim country, it too
feared for its national and regime survival in a nonmonarchic Malay
world.
The Philippines, for the most part, stood at the periphery of the
maritime Southeast Asian subsystem. The Sulu Sultanate, which was
not brought under the control of Manila until the period of U.S. rule,
did for a period exercise control over parts of what became known
first as British North Borneo and then as Sabah. That history underlies
the Philippine claim to Sabah, which brought the country into conflict
with Malaysia.
Extraregional powers were involved in the many postindependence
conflicts in this subregion. Malaysia relied on the Anglo-Malaysia
Defense Agreement to counter the Indonesian challenge. Singapore
followed a global strategy to enhance its survival prospects. It also
supported the U.S. military presence in the region, not only to balance
other extraregional powers but also to balance Indonesia and
Malaysia. In the wake of the closing of U.S. military bases in the
Philippines in 1992, Singapore offered to host facilities for the United
States. Malaysia and Singapore continue to be members of the Five
Power Defence Arrangements. They also engage in naval exercises
with the American navy and provide it some minimal bunkering and
service facilities. Despite these and other interactions, the involvement
of major powers in maritime Southeast Asia is small compared with
their participation in the affairs of the other three subregions. Further,
tensions and conflicts in maritime Southeast Asia have moderated
considerably since the change of regime in Indonesia in 1965, which
opened the way for subregional cooperation.
Regional Cooperation
The conflictual nature of major-power relations and the
interpenetration of the security dynamics at the various levels
prevented the development of regional cooperation among Asian
countries. In the early post-World War II period there were several
attempts to involve Asian

 Page 107
countries in regional cooperation (SEATO and Economic Cooperation
in Asia and the Far East [ECAFE], for example), but all were initiated
by external powers. The first Asian initiative was that of India, which
convened the Asian Relations Conference in 1947. This eventually led
to the Colombo Powers (India, Burma, Ceylon, Indonesia, and
Pakistan) meeting in 1954, which in turn paved the way for the Asian-
African Conference in Bandung, Indonesia, in 1955. The purposes of
these meetings were to provide an alternative to alignment with the
two superpower-dominated blocs and to draw attention to the
developmental needs of the Third World countries. The Indian
initiatives and the Bandung Conference laid the foundations for the
Nonaligned Movement, but it did not translate into a regional forum
or organization for Asia.
The first indigenous efforts toward Asian regional cooperation took
shape in maritime Southeast Asia. As noted earlier, that subregion,
though subject to civil and international strife in the 1950s and 1960s,
was not the scene of intense competition among the major powers.
Malaya (now Malaysia), the Philippines, and Thailand formed the
Association of Southeast Asia (ASA) in 1961. However, the
Philippine claim to Sabah and the Indonesian confrontation with
Malaysia halted the development of ASA from about 1963 until 1967,
when it was succeeded by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN, composed of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines,
Singapore, and Thailand (Jorgensen-Dahl 1982). Several reasons lay
behind the formation of ASEAN: fear of internal and international
communism, reduced faith in or mistrust of external powers,
Indonesia's decision to pursue its "active and independent" foreign
policy through regional cooperation, the desire on the part of Malaysia
and Singapore to constrain Indonesia and bring it into a more
cooperative framework, considerations of regime consolidation in
nearly all member states, and the desire to concentrate on economic
development. Although the formally articulated purpose of ASEAN
was economic and sociocultural cooperation, security was a key
concern from its inception. The development of ASEAN has been
linked to and stimulated by several political-military developments in
the region. The 1969 Guam doctrine and the British decision to
withdraw from the east of Suez by 1971 were important factors
leading to the 1971 Kuala Lumpur Declaration to make Southeast
Asia a Zone of Peace, Freedom, and Neutrality (ZOPFAN).
Communist victories in 1975 in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam
prompted the second summit meeting, the Declaration of ASEAN
Concord, and the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in 1976.
Vietnam's invasion and occupation of Cambodia, and ASEAN's
opposition to that act, was a milestone in the development of the
association.

 Page 108
ASEAN confronted several problems in its early yearsthe Philippine
claim to Sabah and tensions in Malaysia-Singapore and Singapore-
Indonesia relations. It survived the early problems and gradually
became stronger. ASEAN has had several successes in promoting
peace and security in Southeast Asia (Leifer 1989; Alagappa 1991d:
297-300). It helped create trust, goodwill, and confidence among
member states. In the process it transformed the normative structure
and eased the political survival problems of member states. ASEAN
facilitated the transformation of a subregion of turmoil into a more
stable and predictable area in which the role of force has been
minimized, though not eliminated. International political stability in
turn facilitated economic growth and development. ASEAN's
cohesion, regional identity, and growing international stature enabled
it to take collective political and diplomatic action, most effectively
with regard to Cambodia. ASEAN has also been relatively successful
in its dialogue with the major powers. Over the years it has become an
important force in the international politics of Southeast Asia. The end
of the Cold War has seen the broadening and deepening of ASEAN.
Vietnam became a member in 1995, and Burma, Cambodia, and Laos
secured admission in 1997. ASEAN has committed itself to creating a
free trade area by 2003.

12 It also took the lead in creating the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF)
and has been active in charting the future of the Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.

ASEAN also suffered limitations. The conflict-settlement mechanisms

specified in the 1976 treaty remain largely unused, and most disputes
among member states are unresolved. The association's diplomatic
success with regard to the Cambodian conflict would not have been
possible without the support of the United States, China, and Japan
(Alagappa 1993). Despite its many efforts, ASEAN was unable to end
the Cambodian conflict: that development had to await changes in the
interests and policies of the major powers. The ZOPFAN proposal and
the Southeast Asia a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone (SEANWFZ)
proposal could not be realized. ASEAN did not make much headway
in economic cooperation. Until the early 1990s cooperation among
ASEAN members remained largely political and diplomatic, and the
organization's support base was limited to a relatively small group of
political leaders and bureaucrats. These limitations, although
significant, do not negate the organization's achievements.
The success of ASEAN subregional cooperation served as an
example, contributing to the formation of the South Asian Association
for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in 1983.13 Like ASEAN,
SAARC did not explicitly focus on security, and an understanding
was reached to avoid dealing with contentious bilateral issues.
Nevertheless, the regular

 Page 109
meetings among heads of governments have provided the opportunity
to discuss difficult bilateral issues, even during periods of tension. On
occasion, such meetings have led to agreements, such as the bilateral
agreement between India and Pakistan not to attack each other's
nuclear facilities. SAARC, however, has not been able to modify the
security thinking and behavior of the South Asian countriesat least not
thus far.
The focus of SAARC from its inception was on social, economic, and
technical issues. The 1983 Declaration on South Asian Cooperation
called for collective self-reliance through economic growth, social
progress, and cultural development. The Integrated Program of Action
(IPA) endorsed regional cooperation in nine areas (Tiwari 1989: 47-
61). But deep-seated bilateral problems, concern about security, and
preoccupation with relative gain permitted only modest progress even
in areas other than political security. More recently, however, there
have been some encouraging signs. An agreement on a SAARC
Preferential Trade Arrangement (SAPTA) was concluded and entered
into force in December 1995. Settlement of some of the bilateral
disputes that complicated Indo-Nepali and Indo-Bangladeshi relations
was reached in 1996, and changes in government in India and
Pakistan in 1997 appear to have introduced a thaw in their bilateral
relations. These winds of changestill very tenuousappear to have led
to an improved atmosphere at the ninth SAARC summit, held in May
1997. At that meeting the heads of government decided to accelerate
the formation of a free trade area in the region, advancing the target
date to 2001.
The intersection of the competitive interests of the four major powers,
as well as the zero-sum nature of the Korea and Taiwan conflicts,
prevented the development of regional cooperation in Northeast Asia.
The absence of formal organizations, however, did not prevent the
emergence of multilateral economic and, to a lesser degree, political
interactions in the subregion, a phenomenon called "soft regionalism"
(Scalapino 1988: 3).
Conclusions
This broad overview of the history of international politics in Asia
over a period of two thousand years suggests several observations.
First, despite the considerable cultural and economic interaction
among the Asian countries, historically there was no sustained pattern
of political interaction that embraced all Asian countries. Patterned
political relations did develop at the subregional level, and such
relations were almost entirely autonomous, especially in Northeast
and South Asia. Colonization by

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European powers put an end to these autonomous subregional
systems, contributing to the integration of Asian states into a global
system that was dominated by European powers and their rivalries.
Although an Asian system could not emerge under colonial rule,
colonial rule and the nationalist struggles against it contributed to the
development of a concept of Asian identity.
During the Cold War, for the first time in history, an Asia-wide
regional security system evolved. It was rather loose and remained
subordinate to and dominated by the global rivalry between the United
States and the Soviet Union. This subordinate Asian system included
five interconnected security clusters. At the broad regional level was
the cluster composed of the United States, the Soviet Union, China,
India, and Japan. Its dynamics were driven by the Soviet-American,
Sino-American, Sino-Soviet, and Sino-Indian conflicts, in that order.
This cluster had a deep impact on and interconnected the other four
clusters in Northeast, South, continental Southeast, and maritime
Southeast Asia. The security dynamics of the Northeast Asia cluster
were in many ways the same as those of the broad regional cluster.
The other clusters had their own local dynamics, but those dynamics
were penetrated andin the case of Northeast and continental Southeast
Asiadominated by the rivalries and conflicts among the major powers.
Second, the historical interstate systems in Asia were structurally
anarchic but permitted hierarchic relations. In East Asia the hierarchy
was based on the ideas of higher civilization and universal kingship,
as well as power. In South and Southeast Asia, hierarchy rested
largely on gradations of power and was subject to more frequent
challenges. Systems with imperial centers and tributary or vassal
states that maintained a relatively high degree of autonomy operated
in all subregions. In the postcolonial phase, an international system
based on the notion of sovereign, egalitarian nation-states has taken
root in Asia, but traces of the earlier hierarchic systems remain
visible. The huge disparity between countries like China, India, and
Indonesia, on the one hand, and other Asian nations, on the other, as
well as dissatisfaction with their current status, informs the desire of
those former imperial centers for leadership and respect, if not
dominance and hegemony. Notions of deference and accommodation
attest to the informal operation of hierarchy. But at base there is a
tension between the two systems. Because of the availability of
countervailing power from regional and extraregional powers, as well
as the prevailing international norms that support equality among
states, the weaker powers, which in earlier eras would have
acquiesced to an inferior status, now resist and contest claims by
others to positions of leadership and dominance.

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Third, there is a strong tradition of power politics in Asia. This was
explicit in the Indic system and also formed part of the Chinese
strategic culture. Conflict was endemic in Asian systems, and power
balancing was common when feasible. The quest for hierarchy and
universal domination by imperial centers left little scope for
coexistence and cooperation, and international law was not a feature
of Asian systems. The Cold War, with its emphasis on military power,
alliances, and alignment, reinforced this tradition and worked against
regional cooperation in Asia. Nevertheless, regional cooperation did
flower in one subregionmaritime Southeast Asiaand now appears to
be making some limited headway in South Asia and the broader Asia-
Pacific region. These developments, especially that in Southeast Asia,
lend support to the constructivist proposition that the logic of anarchy
is a social construction and that the realist logic can be transformed.
Fourth, the nature of the political unit in Asia was transformed by the
colonial experience. The nation-state became the principal actor in
Asia. However, as nation-states the Asian countries are still new, and
several have no prior existence as separate political units. Nearly all
suffer weaknesses and confront internal and external challenges. The
process of consolidation may take decades, if not centuries, and
success is not guaranteed, although so far there has been only one case
of dismemberment. Consequently, in the conduct of their international
relations these nation-states attach great significance to the principles
of sovereignty, territorial integrity, and noninterference in domestic
affairs. Finally, this chapter highlights the historical underpinnings of
national self-conceptions (particularly those of China and India), the
historical roots of the identity dilemma confronting contemporary
Japan, and the deep distrust that characterizes many bilateral relations
(Sino-Vietnamese, Sino-Japanese, Japanese-Korean, Japanese-
Russian, Thai-Vietnamese, Vietnamese-Khmer, Khmer-Thai, Sino-
Indian, Indo-Pakistani, and Indo-Sri Lankan). Power differentials have
reinforced some of these lines of enmity, but they did not produce
them in the first place. Considerations of history and identity must
figure prominently in the analysis of Asian security.

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PART II
SECURITY PRACTICE: COUNTRY STUDIES

 Page 115

THE MAJOR POWERS

3
China
Security Practice of a Modernizing and Ascending Power
Wu Xinbo
The Chinese have always been a great, courageous, and industrious
nation; it is only in modern times that they have fallen behind. And that was
due entirely to oppression and exploitation by foreign imperialism and
domestic
reactionary governments....Ours will no longer be a nation subject to insult
and humiliation. We have stood up.
MAO ZEDONG, SEPTEMBER 21, 1949

For Mao and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the founding of
the People's Republic of China (PRC) not only marked the end of the
era of foreign aggression and internal chaos but also introduced the
prospect of building a strong, prosperous, and respected China. Both
the political leadership and the Chinese public believe that, given its
vast territory and large population, its long unbroken history, its
contribution to the progress of civilization, and its historic position in
the Sinocentric world order, China must regain major-power status.
This has been a central goal of the PRC since its founding. But
Chinese security thinking and behavior in the first several decades of
communist rule were also shaped by a sense of vulnerability, issuing
both from the "century of humiliation" and from the combination of
China's weakness in material strength and technological capability, its
unfavorable position in the global balance of power, and direct
external military threats, initially from the United States and later
from the Soviet Union.

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Although Chinese security thinking and behavior during this period
were largely in the realist tradition, they also bore some features of
idealism. The international environment was seen as inherently
hostile; the nation-state and the regime were the crucial referents of
security; political survival (of regime and nation) topped the security
agenda; and security through power (national power, alignment, and
alliance) and diplomacy was the dominant approach. Meanwhile,
some aspects of Chinese security policy (such as the rift with the
Soviet Union and support for international revolutionary movements)
were obviously affected by ideological and moral considerations.
Since the early 1980s, Chinese security thinking has changed
substantially. The international environment is perceived as less
hostile, even benign and beneficial; economic modernization tops the
national agenda; and the value of international cooperation to national
survival, strength, and status is increasingly recognized. These
developments, however, do not imply that Chinese security thinking
has become liberal and internationalist; they indicate only that the
hard realpolitik of the early Cold War period has moderated. As China
modernizes and becomes more of a status quo power, its conception
of security is likely to change further. In the near term, however,
Chinese notions of security will continue to be shaped by realist
elements.
Security Thinking During the Cold War
A deep sense of vulnerability pervaded Chinese security thinking
following the founding of the PRC. The feeling was rooted in China's
relatively recent experiences with the Western powers and Japan.
Before 1840 the Middle Kingdom had been very successful in
managing its foreign relations, which were conducted mostly with
"barbarians" from within the tributary system. After the First Opium
War (1839-42), however, China suffered one blow after another in
dealing with industrialized powers. Unequal treaties, war indemnities,
concessions, extraterritoriality, and territorial cession all turned the
Middle Kingdom into a semicolony. Almost all the nineteenth-century
major powers joined in to take advantage of China's weakness. This
"century of humiliation" left a bitter memory, creating a belief among
the Chinese that China would always be the target of the sinister
motives of other countries, especially the major powers, because of its
great market potential, huge amount of cheap labor, rich resources,
and strategically important location.
The sense of vulnerability was aggravated by China's material
weakness. The founders of the PRC held that although China is a
large country in both territory and population, it is a weak power in
terms

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of economic and technological capability (Mao 1994: 175, 193). This
reality severely limited the resources China could draw upon to
enhance its national security and put it at a disadvantage with regard
to the major powers. As Mao Zedong said in 1954, "We are now weak
industrially, agriculturally, culturally and militarily, and the
imperialists, calculating that we have only that much strength, come to
bully us" (Mao 1993: 359).
The security thinking of PRC leaders has been marked by a
consistently strong concern over the balance of power in the global
context and China's position within it. When the PRC was founded,
the status quo was far from satisfactory. The international system was
dominated by two superpowers, neither of which the PRC was
capable of challenging. The Western world, headed by the United
States, adopted a hostile attitude toward the newly born republic,
while the socialist camp, to which China belonged, stood in a weak
position with regard to the capitalist camp. Within the socialist camp,
the PRC was dependent on the USSR and was unable to exert any
independent influence.
In late 1957 Mao suggested that the balance of power between East
and the West had reached a turning point, marked by the launching of
two satellites by the USSR. In Mao's words, "the East Wind prevails
over the West Wind" (Mao 1994: 291). His optimism, however, was
short-lived. The rupture of the Sino-Soviet alliance and the détente
between the USSR and the United States in the early 1960s brought
the PRC under the combined pressure of both superpowers. The 1960s
turned out to be the harshest years for China. In the late 1960s, when
the global competition between the United States and the Soviet
Union intensified and the United States readjusted its Asian strategy,
China saw an opportunity. The Sino-American rapprochement in 1972
greatly improved the PRC's position in the strategic triangle, as well
as in the international community. Although the global distribution of
power was far from encouraging, China had greatly improved its
position vis-à-vis the superpowers.
Challenges to Security
Direct military threats were a key factor in the PRC leadership's
security thinking from the 1950s through the early 1980s. From its
founding, the PRC had faced U.S. economic sanctions, diplomatic
isolation, and military pressure. Hostility between the two countries
soon led to direct military conflict on the Korean peninsula. The end
of the Korean War brought no improvement in China's security
environment: China faced the U.S.-led "crescent" encirclement from
Northeast to Southeast Asia. During the 1950s what concerned the
PRC leaders

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most was U.S. involvement in the Taiwan issue and not the possibility
of a major war between China and the United States. In the 1950s
Mao assumed that although there was the possibility of a third world
war, such a war could be prevented from breaking out (Mao 1994:
136). This thinking continued through 1960 when he stated that the
relationship between the socialist and capitalist camps was
characterized not by ''hot war" or "peaceful coexistence," but by "cold
war coexistence" (Mao 1994: 422).
The full-scale intervention in Vietnam by the United States beginning
in 1964, however, aggravated the PRC leadership's concern over the
U.S. military threat. China worried about the escalation of the war in
Vietnam and its possible spillover into southern China. The
apprehension was so strong that Zhou Enlai sent a warning to
President Lyndon B. Johnson through Pakistan, in an effort to prevent
another Sino-American military confrontation (Zhou 1990: 460-61).
Nationwide mobilization was ordered, and the People's Liberation
Army (PLA) was prepared for "an early war, a major war and a
nuclear war" (Foundation for International and Strategic Studies 1993:
249). While the U.S. military threat still lingered, the Sino-Soviet
border conflict in 1969 generated even greater alarm within the PRC
leadership. That confrontation was viewed as the most serious
external military threat to China since the Korean War. The crisis
caused Mao to reassess the international strategic situation and to
reach the conclusion that the world war was not only inevitable but
also imminent (Xu 1991: 539). This point of view dominated China's
security thinking until the early 1980s.
Responses
From the 1950s to the 1970s China's responses to various security
challenges were shaped by considerations linked to traditional
realism, ideology, and moralism, and comprised a combination of
diplomatic and military approaches. One component of the diplomatic
approach was alignment with the superpowers. The underlying
rationale was that to oppose the more dangerous of the two
superpowers, China should exploit common ground with the other,
more friendly or less threatening superpower. The first attempt of this
kind was the Sino-Soviet alliance against the United States. Because
the United States had taken the side of the Nationalists against the
CCP in China's Liberation War (1946-49), Mao declared even before
the founding of the PRC that China would "lean to one side"that is,
toward the Soviet Union, with which China shared ideological and
strategic interests. The Sino-Soviet alliance forged in February 1950
helped offset the U.S. strategic pressure on China throughout the
1950s. In the early 1960s, ideological differ-

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ences began to strain ties between Beijing and Moscow. The PRC
leaders, unhappy with Khrushchev's internal policy of criticizing
Stalin and his external policy of seeking "peaceful coexistence" with
the United States, asserted that the Soviet leadership had betrayed
orthodox Marxism-Leninism and adopted a "revisionist" line.
Although the Soviet "great-nation chauvinism" also contributed to
Beijing's ill feeling toward Moscow, it was the ideological conflict
between China and the Soviet Union that fatally undermined the
bilateral alliance. Even though the United States was still viewed as
the major threat to China's national security, Mao decided to break
with the Soviet Union. At this juncture, China's realism was
challenged and temporarily superseded by Mao's strong idealism.
After the 1969 border conflict, with the Soviet Union now identified
by China as its most dangerous enemy and the United States under
President Richard M. Nixon seeking rapprochement with the PRC,
China's alignment strategy was revitalized. The pattern of Sino-
American cooperation against Soviet expansion characterized the
strategic triangle well into the 1980s.
The other component of the diplomatic approach was the "united
front" strategy, aimed at mobilizing all possible forces against the
immediate enemy. The strategy had its origins in the CCP's
experiences in the Anti-Japanese War and the Liberation War. The
united-front strategy had three stages, corresponding to the 1950s, the
1960s, and the 1970s.
In the 1950s, Mao identified three forces on the world political
landscape: socialists, nationalists, and imperialists. Although the
major task of opposing imperialism belonged to the socialist camp,
the nationalists in the newly independent Asian and African countries,
to the extent that they struggled for national independence and against
colonialism and imperialism, were the forces with which the socialist
countries should unite (Mao 1994: 337, 342). Based on that
assumption, China entered into close relations with India and
Indonesia, both of which were very influential among the newly
independent, nonsocialist countries. Development of relations with
those Third World countries not only served the purpose of opposing
imperialism but also enhanced China's international stature and
reduced its dependence on the Soviet Union (Garver 1993: 49).
During this period, the united-front strategy was not primarily
ideological; rather, it was driven by considerations of national
security.
In the 1960s, as a result of détente between the USSR and the United
States and the collapse of the Sino-Soviet bloc, Mao could no longer
count on the Soviet Union and its Eastern European comrades to fight
against imperialism. He thus turned to the intermediate zone (those
countries besides the United States and the USSR) for help. At

 Page 120
this stage the united-front strategy had a strong ideological
component. Displeased with the Soviet Union's efforts to secure
détente with the United States, Mao began to take a militant attitude
with regard to the United States. His rhetoric became extremely
radical during this period, as he openly called for the defeat and
elimination of imperialism. The PRC pursued so-called "revolutionary
diplomacy," extending support to communists in Southeast Asia and
to national liberation movements in Africa. Mao calculated that the
success of communist revolution and wars of national liberation in
those parts of the world would serve to weaken the global strategic
position of the United States and thereby distract it from pressuring
China.
Another aspect of the united-front strategy in this stage was the
growth of the anti-imperialist camp. Mao proposed in 1961 that "we
should expand the scope of unity, [we] should unite all the Asian,
African and Latin American nations as well as over 90 percent of
people all over the world except imperialists and
counterrevolutionaries of various nations" (Mao 1994: 482). To that
end, he suggested that the intermediate zone should be composed of
two parts: Asia, Africa, and Latin America on the one hand, and
Western Europe and Japan on the other. Mao believed that Japan and
the countries of Western Europe were unhappy with U.S. control and
U.S. imperialism, therefore he saw them as potential allies against
Washington. As such, Mao conceived of forming a wide united front
against U.S. imperialism that would extend from London and Paris to
Beijing and Tokyo (Mao 1994: 506-7, 509, 514, 522).
The 1970s witnessed significant adjustments in the united-front
strategy. In 1974 Mao put forward his theory of the three worlds,
which envisioned the two superpowers as the first world, other
developed capitalist countries such as Japan and the nations of
Western Europe as the second, and the rest of the globe as the third
world (Mao 1994: 600).
world (Mao 1994: 600).

1 The theory of the three worlds, which identified the Soviet Union as
a hegemonic power, was deployed by Beijing to challenge Soviet
leadership of the Socialist bloc and to forge an anti-Soviet united
front, which comprised part of the third world, the entire second
world, and the United States. Beijing downplayed its anti-imperialist
rhetoric, and became much less enthusiastic about "world revolution."

The united front strategy conformed to the realist tradition to the

extent that it sought to address the imbalance in the distribution of
power. However, it also reflected other concerns and displayed other
features. China's massive military and economic assistance and
political support to some socialist countries and to national liberation
movements in the Third World, for example, reflected a strong sense
of the

 Page 121
"proletarian internationalist obligation," which can be characterized as
"revolutionary moralism." Further, the expectation of "world
revolution" and the intent to form the widest possible anti-imperialist
camp render China's security approaches radical and idealist.
Notwithstanding such diplomatic maneuvers, military might was
viewed as the ultima ratio in international politics and was considered
crucial in assuring national security. In view of the constant external
military threat to China from the 1950s to the 1970s, the PRC
maintained the world's largest army; but its weapons systems, force
structure, and military doctrine were all defense oriented. The doctrine
of "people's war," developed during the early 1950s, took into account
the inferiority of the PLA in firepower and mobility. According to the
doctrine, if China were attacked by either of the superpowers, PLA
troops would not engage the enemy in border or coastal areas but
instead would retreat to the interior. Once the aggressor's troops
followed, they would find themselves dispersed in China's vast
territory, isolated and surrounded by its large standing army and
militia. Under such circumstances, the invaders would soon lose
access to supplies and information. When the enemy had been
exhausted by a long war of attrition, the PLA would counterattack. In
addition to formulating the "people's war" doctrine, the PRC in 1955
decided to develop its nuclear capability in response to the U.S.
nuclear threat. China conducted its first nuclear explosion in 1964 and
tested a hydrogen bomb in 1967. Beijing declared from the outset that
its purpose in possessing nuclear bombs was to deter a nuclear attack
and that it would never use nuclear weapons first. As such, "no first
use" and ''second strike" policies have been characteristic tenets of
China's nuclear doctrine.
From 1950 to 1979 China's international use of military force fell into
three categories, based on motivation: to deter a perceived superpower
attack (e.g., involvement in the Korean War), to defend China's
territory from encroachment or to recover territories to which it laid
territory from encroachment or to recover territories to which it laid
claim (e.g., the Sino-Indian border war and the Sino-Soviet border
clash), and to maintain the regional balance of power (e.g., the 1979
Sino-Vietnam border war).

2These three motivations were not mutually exclusive; sometimes the

decision to use force involved all three considerations. In at least one
casethe Sino-Soviet border clashthe use of force was strongly
influenced by domestic political factors.3Subscribers to Clausewitz's
axiom that war is the continuation of politics, the PRC leaders of
Mao's generation were willing to use force to serve China's security
and, more broadly, foreign policy goals whenever necessary.
However, in most cases China sent strong warnings and protests or
engaged in negotiation before applying the ultima ratio. Such conduct

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was a legacy of China's cultural tradition, which advocated "trying
peaceful means before resorting to force" (Xian li hou bing) in
resolving disputes.
Reappraisal of Security
Beginning in the early 1980s, several developments led to the
reappraisal of security in the PRC. Foremost among them was the
high priority accorded to national development. During the Mao era,
the first priority in domestic affairs had been to ensure regime
security. To that end, Beijing had adopted the principle of "taking
class struggle as the key link" and had launched political campaigns
one after another, aimed at liquidating all sorts of class enemies and
solidifying socialism and the proletarian regime. Deng Xiaoping,
though also concerned about regime security, did not see serious
danger to the CCP's leadership. What worried him most was China's
weakness as a nation, especially its backward economy. Deng also
believed that the best way to promote regime security was through
improvement of public welfare, not political suppression. For this
reason, in the late 1970s, the CCP decided to adopt the "Four
Modernizations"modernization of agriculture, industry, national
defense, and science and technologyas the highest priority on the
national agenda. To promote modernization, Beijing adopted a
"reform and open door" policy. This change in focus engendered a
broader view of and new approaches to national security.
Change in the domestic agenda called for a reassessment of the
international situation. Deng Xiaoping, after scrutinizing the
international situation, came to the conclusion that world war could be
averted for some time to come and that the preservation of peace was
likely. With the recession of war and revolution from the international
agenda, Deng argued, peace and development had become the central
themes of international relations (Deng 1993: 104-6, 127). Although
Deng still shared Mao's opinion that the international system is
anarchic and chaotic, and that individual nations within it compete for
their respective national power and interests, Deng differed from Mao
on two points: he saw the international system as a source of more
opportunity than danger, and he was more inclined toward
cooperation than confrontation in pursuing national interests.
The third development was the amelioration of the PRC's immediate
security environment. To create a favorable external atmosphere for
China's modernization program, Beijing decided in 1982 to seek to
moderate the confrontation with Moscow. In the mid-1980s, as China
and the Soviet Union moved to improve bilateral relations, the
possibil-

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ity of a major military conflict between them gradually receded. For
the first time since 1949, PRC leaders did not have to worry about
direct external military threats. As a result, the military element, both
as a security concern and as an approach to security goals, was
downplayed.
In spite of these developments, the central theme of the PRC's security
thinking remained unchanged. In 1980 Deng set three priorities for
China's national agenda throughout the 1980s: economic
development, national unification, and opposition to hegemonism
(Deng 1994: 239-40). Intended respectively to increase China's
material strength, remove the vestiges of the humiliating past, and
promote China's position on the world arena as a major power, these
aims all served a central goal: to turn China into a great power.
Deng's reappraisal of security represents a refinement rather than an
abandonment of Mao's construction of security. Deng agreed with
Mao about the nature of the international system. He also believed in
the need to transform China into a great power. Deng, like Mao,
believed in the primacy of the nation-state and the regime as security
referents; he differed from Mao, however, on the scope of and
approaches to security. Mao defined security narrowly, limiting it to
the political and military dimensions. Deng broadened the concept and
brought social, economic, scientific, and technological elements to the
security agenda. Mao's approaches tended to be confrontational,
whereas Deng sought cooperation and conciliation. Deng also
emphasized the role of economics and was to a certain extent willing
to make use of international institutions and regimes.
State and Regime: Key Referents of Security
In China, the state is the paramount referent of security on both the
domestic and international levels, and regime security is usually
considered an element of national security. There are several reasons
for this view. Historically, the state has been thought of as the
protector, rather than the oppressor, of the people. The Chinese term
guojia (country) is composed of two characters, guo (state) and jia
(family)the two fundamental units within which people live. The state
is also regarded as the protector of other referents of security, such as
zhong (race) and jiao (religion or, broadly defined, culture). This
notion finds expression in such idioms as guo po jia wang (the
country is defeated and home lost), bao jia wei guo (to protect our
homes and defend our country), wang guo mie zhong (national
subjugation and genocide), and bao guo bao jiao (to defend our
country and protect our religion). The fact that in modern times China
has never generated a mature civil society vis-à-vis the state

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is a contributing factor to the hegemony of the state and to the
people's acceptance of it. Another contributing factor is the CCP's
approach to China's domestic politics. Ever since the founding of the
PRC, the CCP has taken every measure to create a unified and
purified social-political order and a highly centralized political
structure, thus ensuring the paramount position of the state. Because
the CCP is the only ruling party, the party, government, and state are
fused. Regime concerns are usually mixed with those of the nation-
state and clothed in the language of national security.
The state and regime, however, face several internal challenges. First,
ethnic groups have long been strong competitors. The Chinese nation
is composed of 55 national minorities. Although most get along well
as part of the "great family of nationalities," separatist influences exist
in some ethnic minority areas, notably Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner
Mongolia. The Tibetans are mainly concerned with the preservation of
their political, religious, and cultural identity. The Uigurs of Xinjiang
and the Inner Mongolians are more interested in uniting with their
ethnic and religious counterparts across the borders than in being part
of the Chinese "great family."
Some ethnic groups do not identify with the state and the regime. For
them their ethnic group is the paramount referent of security. Their
security goals clash with those of the government. For example, they
view secession from the PRC as their major security objective, while
the PRC views secession as a threat to its territorial integrity and thus
to national security. Central government policies that tighten control
over minority areas are perceived by these groups as threats to their
political autonomy and cultural tradition; the central government, for
its part, views some of these groups' activities as threats to national
unity.
In recent years economic growth has also created competing referent
units. Since the 1980s the expansion of a market economy in the PRC
has been accompanied by the decentralization of economic and
political power. Local governments have obtained more authority than
ever before as they direct indigenous economic development. The
weakening of central power and the rise of localism have created
some tension between the central government and local units. For
example, local leaders in China's coastal areas may be more
concerned with foreign economic linkage than with national security
goals such as unification or the expansion of international influence.
Even more significant, the economic boom has fostered the growth of
a middle class, which is likely to pose an even greater challenge to
regime security.
Still, the challenges posed by economic growth are less obvious and
severe than those issuing from minority ethnic groups. So far the CCP

 Page 125
and the central government have maintained an effective monopoly of
political and military power, as well as partial control of economic
power. At present no existing group or organization can seriously
compete with the party and the political center, although the long-term
impact of economic growth is difficult to predict.
Broadening the Scope of Security
Since the late 1980s a combination of internal and external
developments has had a dramatic effect on the PRC security agenda.
These events include the student movement in the PRC and the
Western world's strong response to the Tiananmen Square incident,
the end of the Cold War, the failure of socialism in Eastern Europe
and the former Soviet Union, the Persian Gulf War, and the implosion
of the USSR, almost none of which were anticipated by the PRC
leaders.
Policy makers in the PRC see both opportunity and challenges arising
from the drastic changes in the international situation. On the positive
side is the perception that since the end of the Cold War the
international situation has become less confrontational and hostile,
with disputes increasingly being settled through negotiation. The
relatively peaceful international environment is believed likely to
endure, virtually eliminating the threat of a new world war. The
collapse of the bipolar system put an end to the manipulation of
international affairs by the two superpowers, and the world is moving
toward multipolarity. Economics is more and more important in
international relations. Peace and development remain the central
themes of international relations (Jiang 1992: 26; Li 1995: xv).
Such developments have created favorable conditions for China. First,
the comparatively stable and peaceful international environment
enables China to focus on internal development. Second, under the
influence of a trend toward multipolarity, the vast number of
developing countries, including China, are playing an active role in
international affairs. Third, the rapid economic growth and expanding
economic cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region provides China with
an opportunity to ride on the regional "economic express." Finally,
China's fast-growing domestic market is increasingly attractive to the
world, especially the developed countries. That circumstance grants
Beijing more leeway in the international arena by enabling it to play
the "market card."
At the same time, the PRC leaders have some negative perceptions of
the current scene. With the end of the Cold War, China lost its
strategic leverage vis-à-vis the two superpowers, especially the United
States. Its strategic importance declined drastically in the eyes of
Wash-

 Page 126
ington. The post-Cold War international power structure features "one
superpower plus several major powers,"

4and the United States, as the only remaining superpower, exercises

overwhelming influence on international affairs and is trying to build
a "new world order" of its own conception. In some ways China, as
the only remaining major socialist country, has to bear even greater
political and strategic pressure from the United States and its allies.
And although a major war can be averted in the foreseeable future, the
world is still far from tranquil: ethnic conflicts, territorial disputes,
and religious conflicts have surfaced, resulting in bloodshed and local
wars. For this reason, China must be prepared for contingencies on its
periphery that may result from ethnic and territorial disputes.5As
international economic competition has become increasingly intense,
China has had to make even greater efforts to widen its access to
foreign markets, capital, and technology. The Gulf War that occurred
after the end of the Cold War had several implications for the PRC.
First, in the post-Cold War era, the PLA should be well prepared for a
limited, high-tech war. Second, the PLA lags far behind its Western
counterparts in its ability to conduct modern warfare. Third, control
over oil resources should occupy a special position on the national
security agenda.

The Tiananmen Square incident and the collapse of socialism in

Eastern Europe and the USSR alarmed PRC leaders, who believe that
the legitimacy of the CCP regime has been seriously undermined by
those events. Furthermore, Beijing has asserted that because
Washington and its Western allies no longer need to play the "China
card" against Moscow, they will regard China, the only remaining
major communist country, as the prime target of their "peaceful
evolution" strategy.6At the same time, Beijing suspects that hostile
internal forces, encouraged by developments in the former Soviet
bloc, will work in concert with external anticommunist forces in an
attempt to topple the CCP regime. As a result, regime security could
become a matter of grave concern.
Since 1988 great changes have taken place in relations across the
Taiwan Straits and on the island itself. The expansion of cross-straits
exchanges in social, economic, and cultural areas has greatly
improved the atmosphere across the strait and raised the prospects of
peaceful unification. At the same time, however, political
democratization and the rise of the secessionist influence on the island
are pushing cross-straits relations the other way. As Beijing perceives
an ever-growing momentum on the island for its breakaway from
China, the Taiwan issue moves up on the PRC's list of security
concerns.
All these considerations and recent developments inform the PRC
leaders' perception of threats to national security in the post-Cold War

 Page 127
era. Although a long list can be compiled, five security goals appear to
be prominent at present: sustaining economic growth, preserving
territorial integrity, consolidating regime security, maintaining a
favorable strategic balance, and expanding international influence.
Economic Security
Economic security is both a means to and a goal of national security.
In China it means preserving elements crucial to national economic,
scientific, and technological development strategy while promoting
national interests and gaining an advantageous position in both
international competition and economic cooperation. Special
emphasis is placed on protecting the domestic market and opening
international markets (Ho Fang 1995: 5).
Although economic growth has been the top priority on China's
national agenda since the late 1970s, its significance to national
security was not fully understood until the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Chinese leaders drew a lesson from the disintegration of the USSR
and recognized economic competition as the essence of the post-Cold
War international game. That recognition deepened their conviction
that national security depends more upon overall national strength,
based on a solid economy, than on military might. According to the
report of the Fourteenth Congress of the Communist Party, "modern
Chinese history and the realities of the present-day world show that so
long as a country is economically backward, it will be in a passive
position, subject to manipulation by others. Nowadays the competition
among the various countries is, in essence, a competition of overall
national strength based on economic, scientific and technological
capabilities" (Jiang 1992: 16). Observing the collapse of socialism in
the former Soviet bloc, PRC leaders also learned that economic
development can have a direct impact on regime survival. President
Jiang Zemin warned the CCP, "If we fail to develop our economy
rapidly, it will be very difficult for us to consolidate the Socialist
system and maintain long-term social stability" (Jiang 1992: 16). Thus
a strong economy is believed to be the key to a strong defense
capability, a stable political system, and sustained social harmony.
Threats to economic security come from many directions, both
internal and external. A few are identified in the paragraphs that
follow.
Growing Protectionism in World Trade
Since 1979 the PRC has made remarkable progress in integrating into
the world economic system. Exports and imports as a percentage of

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its gross domestic product grew from about 10 percent in 1978 to
around 45 percent in 1994 (Beijing Review 1995b). Consequently, the
PRC's economic growth has depended heavily on the expansion of its
share in the international market. However, it seems to Beijing that
regional cooperation and regional protectionism have developed in
tandem since the end of the Cold War. The passage of the North
American Free Trade Agreement and the establishment of a unified
European economic community were viewed by China as obvious
signs of the pursuit of protectionism by the industrialized states, with
which China conducts most of its foreign trade. Some of China's
major trading partners, such as the United States, Japan, the European
Community, and South Korea, have imposed so-called antidumping
taxes and quota limitations on certain types of commodities imported
from the PRC, and their actions have adversely affected the
development of related industries in China.
Politicization of Economic Issues
Since 1990 the PRC has been obsessed with the maintenance of most
favored nation (MFN) trading status in the United States. In response
to the Tiananmen Square incident, the United States linked the annual
renewal of MFN status for China to its concessions on human rights,
nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and other issues.
This put the PRC in an awkward position. On the one hand, it has
been unwilling to lose MFN status, which is indispensable to its
thriving export-oriented industries; on the other, it is difficult for
China to meet all the conditions imposed by the Americans. It is an
area where economic security is shadowed by political controversy. A
similar problem confounds China's entry into the General Agreement
on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the World Trade Organization
(WTO).
Since 1986 China has been endeavoring to resume its membership in
GATT and, more recently, to join the newly established WTO.
However, there are serious differences between the PRC and the
developed countries, especially the United States, over the price of
admission. China requests that it be treated basically as a developing
country and accepts only conditions commensurate with that status.
The developed nations, however, in view of the already remarkable
scale of China's economy and its strong momentum of growth, insist
that the PRC should enter WTO as a more competent economy,
bearing the corresponding obligations. In Beijing's opinion, such a
demand is excessive and driven by political motives, implying that
some developed nations are unwilling to see a stronger China.

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The International Economic Intelligence War

Since the end of the Cold War, the intelligence agencies of the major
states have shifted their priorities from obtaining political and military
information to seeking economic, financial, and technological
information. As one of the world's fastest-growing economies, the
PRC believes that it has been selected by foreign intelligence agencies
as an important target of operations. These agencies collect
information on topics ranging from China's macroeconomic policy to
plans for the import and export of specific commodities. The success
of the PRC's efforts in fighting international economic espionage will
help determine whether China can protect its domestic and overseas
markets, how fast it can narrow the technological gap with the
industrialized countries, and how effectively it can protect the
economic benefits of its technological inventions (Yan 1993: 7).
Challenges to China's Maritime Rights and Interests
China boasts 3 million square kilometers of territorial sea rich in fish,
petroleum, and natural gas. As the national economy continues to
grow and the country's available land resources can hardly support the
huge population, the exploitation of those marine resources becomes a
matter of increasing strategic importance. The fact that China has
become a net importer of oil since 1993 makes the protection of its
marine resources even more crucial. Oil exploitation activities by
other countries (Vietnam, for example) in some parts of the South
China Sea where the PRC claims sovereignty pose a threat to the
PRC's oil supply and to its sustained economic development.
Territorial Integrity
China's position on territorial integrity is shaped by its cultural and
historical legacy. Since the Qin dynasty (221-206 B.C.), when China
was first unified, there has been a cultural tradition of "great national
unity" (da yi tong), which holds that unity is better than division and
that division is temporary and abnormal whereas unity is permanent.
Therefore, in the eyes of the PRC elites and the populace, the effort to
recover territories that China has lost in its modern history is part of
nation-building; only by resuming the exercise of sovereignty over
Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao can China call itself a unified nation.
Further, because the problems of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao
were created by foreign aggression, only by resolving those issues can
China remove the last vestige of the "century of humiliation" and
become a true great power.

 Page 130
The key threats to the PRC's territorial integrity are the national
minority separatist movements in Tibet and Xinjiang, and the pro-
independence forces in Taiwan.
Tibet
Tibet is a special entity in almost every respect. Located on the
Qingzang plateau, the southwesternmost part of China, Tibet has only
a difficult overland connection with the principal part of China.
Culturally, the people of Tibet speak languages and practice religions
different from those of China's majority Han population.
Demographically, according to China's official 1982 census, 95
percent of Tibet's residents are ethnic Tibetans. Tibet was "peacefully"
liberated by the PLA in the spring of 1951 and became an integral part
of the PRC. Ever since, separatist forces have been trying to break
away from China. In 1959 separatist groups launched revolts; when
the rebellions were put down, the Dalai Lamathe spiritual leader of
Tibetand his followers fled to India. In October 1987 and March 1989,
Tibetan secessionists organized demonstrations and riots in Lhasa, the
capital city of Tibet, and openly called for Tibetan independence. The
PRC authorities have been able to deal with such open revolts and
riots. The real problem is the influence of the Dalai Lama in Tibet and
the separatist activities of his followers in exile. So long as the exiled
Tibetan community exists, Tibetan separatism will remain a major
concern for PRC leaders.
Xinjiang
In Xinjiang, the impetus for secession comes partly from ethnic and
cultural differences between the Han and the local peoples, and partly
from the ethnic and religious ties between Uigurs and Uzbeks on both
sides of the border. In the early 1960s, when Sino-Soviet relations
soured, there occurred a Soviet-instigated emigration of Xinjiang
Uigurs and Tajiks from China to Soviet Central Asia. The PRC's
attempt to clamp down on emigration finally led to widespread
demonstrations, riots, and other disturbances (Garver 1993: 273).
During the period of Sino-Soviet confrontation, the PRC had been
extremely sensitive to the Soviet influence in Xinjiang and resentful
of its exploitation of the exiled Uigurs in the Soviet Union to incite
anti-Chinese uprising. The implosion of the USSR at the end of 1991
and the resulting independence of the Central Asian
republicsespecially Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, which
border on Chinafurther complicated the situation in Xinjiang. The
separatist groups, encouraged by the disintegration of the Soviet
Union and the national independence gained by

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their ethnic and religious counterparts across the border, have become
ever more active; meanwhile, the emergence of relatively unstable
Islamic states on China's Central Asian borders to some extent
facilitates Islamic fundamentalist infiltration into Xinjiang.
Taiwan
The Taiwan issue is gaining greater salience on the PRC's security
agenda. In addition to the historical and cultural factors already
mentioned, other considerations influence the PRC's stance on
Taiwan. If Taiwan breaks away, Xinjiang, Tibet, and Inner Mongolia
might follow. Strategically, China would lose control of its door to the
western Pacific. Furthermore, to offset the strategic superiority of the
mainland nation, an independent Taiwan would seek alliance with
other major powers, perhaps the United States and Japan, thus
adversely affecting China's security environment.

7Politically, especially with the recovery of Hong Kong and the

scheduled return of Macao to Chinese control, it would be very hard
for Beijing to explain to the populace why Taiwan should be left out.
No mainland Chinese government can hope to survive an independent
Taiwan.

A further concern is the tremendous difference between the political

systems of the PRC and Taiwan. Taiwan has completed its political
transformation and established a Western-style democracy; the PRC
still adheres to its socialist political system. The huge economic gap
between the two sides is another obstacle to unification. Taiwan's per
capita income is about 20 times that in the PRC. As a result, the
Taiwanese fear that their prosperous island will be submerged in a sea
of poverty once unification takes place.
Political developments in Taiwan have changed the attitude of the
Taiwanese elite toward unification. During the era of Chiang Kai-shek
and his son Chiang Ching-kuo, Taiwan was controlled by
mainlanderspeople who had fled to the island after the Nationalists
lost their war to the Communists on the mainland. Since that time
more and more native Taiwanese have taken the place of the
mainlanders in the political arena, so that the political leadership has
become ''Taiwanized." This new-generation political elite, lacking
historical and personal links to the mainland, would prefer
independence to unification.
At present, the international environment seems favorable to Taiwan's
independence. Taiwan's economic prosperity and political
democratization have won it considerable sympathy in the world
community. In recent years national splits in the former USSR and the
former Yugoslavia have fed secessionist sentiment in Taiwan. In
addition, Taiwan is trying to exploit the principle of national self-
determination,

 Page 132
generally endorsed by the international community, to justify its
desire for independence.
A final dimension of PRC leaders' concern over Taiwan is the U.S.
factor. Given the history of relations between the United States and
Taiwan, the PRC is extremely sensitive to any U.S. actions that might
directly or indirectly encourage Taiwan's attempt to gain
independence. The PRC leaders believe that the United States has
never wished to see Taiwan's unification with the PRC, and that at a
time when China is emerging as a world power, the United States,
unwilling to accept such status for China, is trying to thwart its
growth. In Beijing's opinion, to play the "Taiwan card" and prevent
unification is part of the U.S. "soft containment" strategy toward
China. Promoting U.S.-Taiwan relations, expanding the sale of
weapons to Taiwan, and granting a visa to Taiwanese leader Lee
Teng-hui: all these actions are viewed as part of the U.S. scheme to
facilitate Taiwan's independence.
Regime Survival
As noted earlier, the Tiananmen Square incident and the collapse of
communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union alarmed
the PRC leaders, who believe that regime survival is now threatened
by a combination of internal and external challenges. Overall, the
PRC elite identifies three sources of threat to its regime security: the
"peaceful evolution" strategy of the Western world, the influence of
"bourgeois liberalism"

8within China, and social instability.

Peaceful Evolution
The PRC leadership believes that ever since the 1950s the Western
world has been employing a dual strategy to subvert socialist systems:
military containment and peaceful evolution. In the closing years of
the Cold War the Western countries, faced with the common threat
from Moscow, supported the PRC's economic development and
political stability. With the end of the Cold War and the disappearance
of the Soviet threat, however, some Western countries have changed
their conciliatory and collaborative attitudes toward China and have
begun to view China as a major target of the peaceful evolution
strategy. In Beijing's opinion, this strategy involves using economic
aid and trade as means to exercise political influence, gaining
ideological and cultural penetration through various channels, stirring
up antigovernment sentiment in China, supporting political dissidents,
and nurturing pro-Western forces (Lin 1991: 156). Since 1994, the
PRC leadership has

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described Western political schemes against China as
"Westernization" and "splitting" (Xinhua News Agency 1995).
Bourgeois Liberalism
The internal challenge to regime security is much more complicated
than the external one. Since the 1980s the ideologies of Marxism-
Leninism and Maoism have gradually lost their appeal in China. At
the same time some segments of the populace, influenced by Western
democratic values, have begun to embrace Western-style multiparty
politics and to question the CCP's monopoly of power. As the
revolutionary generation dies off, the legitimacy of the present regime
is increasingly challenged. A by-product of the "reform and open door
policy" is that most of the people in China are finding the Western
economic system more efficient and productive. They have lost
confidence in the socialist economic system and are highly skeptical
of the CCP's ability to manage China's economy. Finally, social and
economic developments in the post-Mao era have given rise to
entrepreneurs and self-employed professionals, and a middle class is
burgeoning in China. Once this new social force has fully emerged, it
will pose serious challenges to the economic, social, and political
foundations of the Communist regime.
In the view of PRC leaders, the greatest danger to the regime exists
when there is collaboration between internal and external hostile
forces. The Tiananmen Square incident is a typical example. Beijing
believes that student protest in China was initially incited by the
international anticommunist influence. Then the internal hostile forces
issued two fundamental calls: to overthrow the CCP and to topple the
socialist system. Their ultimate purpose, in the eyes of the CCP, is to
make China abandon the socialist system and to establish a capitalist
republic that will be a vassal to the Western world (Deng 1993: 303,
331).
Social Instability
In addition to political forces, social instability is seen as a challenge
to regime security. From the 1950s to the 1970s China successfully
established a unified and tightly controlled social order. Social
stability was not seriously challenged, even though state actors
considered it a major concern. Since the late 1970s, however, the
adoption of economic reform and opening has caused several social
problems. One is the loss of social control. China's attempt to
transform its centrally planned economy into a market economy was
accompanied by relaxation of political control over the society. This
change was especially evident in

 Page 134
the countryside, where the rural economy was decollectivized and the
"people's commune" dissolved. As a result, the government lost its
most effective means to maintain political control over huge rural
areas. Today in some regions, law and order is seriously challenged
and chaos prevails, presenting a direct threat to regime stability.
Another social problem is the corruption that is rampant throughout
the bureaucracy. Although China's centrally planned economy is
gradually giving way to a market economy, the government still plays
an important role in economic and social activities. In a period when
communist ideology has lost its influence on people's behavior but the
system of rule by law is not yet well established, those who hold
power can easily become corrupt. At present, corruption ranks among
the top concerns of the populace. To some extent, it has smeared the
CCP's image and undermined people's confidence in the government.
A third social ill is economic inequality. Although economic reform
has led to remarkable prosperity throughout China, not everyone has
benefited equally. Growing unemployment in cities and in the
countryside, uneven economic development between the coast and the
interior, and income disparity between urban and rural residents and
between people from different walks of life are all factors that have
combined to produce widespread dissatisfaction with the CCP and the
government.
A final major source of social instability is organized crime. As a
result of the increased openness to the outside world and the internal
loosening of social control, there has been increasing infiltration of
outside criminal organizations into China and a rise in crimes
committed by Chinese gangs. Drug-related activities are of special
concern to the PRC leaders. In the early years of the twentieth
century, opium addiction was a major problem in China: out of a
population of 400 million, as many as 20 million (5 percent) were
drug users and more than 300,000 made their living in the drug trade
(Hong 1995: 15). After the founding of the PRC, the government
tackled the problem resolutely and in three years largely eliminated
the blight of opium that had affected China for more than a century.
Beginning in the early 1980s, however, international drug traffickers
took advantage of China's opening policy to transport drugs from the
"Golden Triangle" via the Chinese mainland to Hong Kong and
Macao, from whence the drugs entered the international market. As
time went on, more and more drugs began to circulate within China,
resulting in a growing number of drug addicts. Because drug addiction
not only drains a state's wealth but also leads to the spread of disease
and an increased crime rate, it is commonly regarded as a serious
threat to social stability. The bitter memory of the Opium Wars that
unleashed the "century of humiliation" upon China

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fuels the government's concern over the consequences of drug
addiction for national security.
Strategic Concerns
Strategic concerns did not disappear from the PRC's security agenda
with the end of the Cold War. Continuing strategic worries involve the
possibility of a limited war and the balance of power among the major
powers.
The PRC leadership and strategists recognize that with the end of the
Cold War, the prospect of a large-scale war in the foreseeable future
has become remote; a more likely possibility is a limited war on
China's periphery. China has more immediate neighbors than any
other state in the world. Ethnic rivalries and unresolved territorial
disputes could, under certain circumstances, trigger armed conflicts.
In addition, if Taiwan ventures to declare its independence, the PRC is
very likely to resort to force, and some foreign powers, especially the
United States, might intervene militarily. The PLA might find itself
hard-pressed to cope with such eventualities. Although military
modernization has been under way since the early 1980s, the PLA's
existing force structure, operational doctrine, training, deployment,
and equipment would give it little chance of winning a limited, high-
tech war.
As a regional power, China is very sensitive to any shift in the East
Asian balance of power and seeks to maintain a strategic position in
the region that is not inferior to that of any of the other major powers.
The United States, with forward deployment and bilateral security
alliances in the region, is in a position to significantly affect China's
security environment. The adjustments in U.S. East Asian security
strategy under President Clintonincluding the maintenance of about
100,000 troops deployed in the Western Pacific and the reaffirmation
of the U.S.-Japan security alliancehave caused much concern in
China. Some strategists see these adjustments as indicative that
China. Some strategists see these adjustments as indicative that
growing concern over a rising China has driven the United States to
increase its strategic constraint on Beijing. If necessary, the U.S.
forward military presence and its bilateral security alliances could
become part of a U.S. containment strategy against China.

As early as the 1970s the PRC leadership suggested that Japan, after
transforming itself into a major economic power, would seek to
become a major political and military power as well. For historical
reasons, China is very sensitive to any signs that Japan is moving in
that direction. The PRC leaders believe that since the 1980s Japan has
been endeavoring to secure a political status commensurate with its
economic might. In fact, Japan has considerably increased its defense
budget; today Japan pos-

 Page 136
sesses an army equipped with the most advanced weapons, and its
Self-Defense Force (SDF) personnel have been dispatched overseas
several times. In Beijing's view, the redefinition of the U.S.-Japan
alliance is designed to enable Japan to play a larger role in regional
security affairs. The PRC policy community is concerned about how
far Japan would go. Although in the short term the United States
constitutes China's principal strategic concern, some Chinese
strategists suggest that in the long run Japan will replace it as the
greatest threat to China.

10

At present Russia is not a major strategic concern for China.

However, given the troubled history of bilateral relations and the long
common border, the PRC leadership must always keep in mind the
Russian factor. No matter how the Russian situation evolveswhether
the country falls apart or emerges as a revived powerRussia will
inevitably have a great impact on China's security environment.
Strategic analysts in the PRC tend to believe that after overcoming its
internal chaos, Russia will rapidly recover its vigor and once again
loom large on China's northern border. Therefore, Beijing should
carefully manage its relations with Moscow before that day arrives.
Since the end of the Cold War, the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN) has gained prominence as an independent strategic
actor. It is of strategic concern to China for two reasons. First, the
PRC watches closely to see in what directions the ASEAN countries,
as the motor of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), will move that
budding regional security organization and how it will affect China's
security interests. The PRC fears that the ARF may somehow fall
under U.S. control and become another instrument of U.S. strategic
pressure on China. Another concern, particularly since Vietnam has
become a member of the association, is the possibility that ASEAN
countries may form a united front against China on the South China
Sea issue.
Promoting International Influence
As a regional major power and a prospective global power, China is
not content to limit its influence to the region but also seeks to expand
its influence globally. On the regional level, it would like to see a
more Asia-oriented political-strategic landscape. In the view of PRC
leaders, Asian affairs should be managed mainly by Asians
themselves, with external influence kept to a minimum, and China
should play a role commensurate with its status. Globally, the PRC
leadership welcomes further multipolarization of the international
structure and holds that the superpower's excessive influence on
international affairs should be cut down, while other states, especially
regional powers, should have a louder voice at the decision-making
table.

 Page 137
The PRC perceives challenges to its international influence
predominantly from the United States and its Western allies. Beijing
frequently complains about the pressure it continually has to bear
from hegemonism and power politics, by which it refers to attempts
by the United States and its allies to manipulate international affairs
while denying the voice of other states, including the PRC. For
instance, the United States is nearly always able to mobilize majority
support within the U.N. Security Council, setting its agenda and
manipulating the outcome of the votes, whereas China is generally
unable to take any initiative that is not welcomed by the United States.
Sometimes PRC leaders also view the G-7 summit as a manifestation
of hegemonism and power politics because it often makes significant
political and economic decisions without consulting those likely to be
affected (Deng 1993: 345). Overall, the power imbalance between
China and the United States and its allies makes Beijing feel greatly
constricted in the world arena.
Prioritizing Security Concerns
Although the security concerns discussed so far are all closely related,
they are not equally important. Regime survival is a paramount
internal security issue; territorial integrity is the key concern in the
external dimension. Other security concerns, such as economic growth
or international influence, can be sacrificed for the sake of those two
goals. Nevertheless, given the growing importance attached to
economic well-being, some compromise of regime security may be
deemed acceptable to advance important economic interests. This
approach has been exemplified by China's release of some political
dissidents in an effort to obtain MFN trading status with the United
States in the years following the Tiananmen Square incident.
The relative salience of various security concerns changes from time
to time. At present, economic development is the PRC's central task;
consequently, economic threats draw the most attention from the PRC
leadership. Political threats to regime survival were regarded as a
pressing issue in the wake of the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989;
however, after the normalization of relations between China and most
Western countries and the restoration and consolidation of internal
political control, Beijing began to view both the peaceful evolution
strategy and bourgeois liberalism as long-range challenges rather than
immediate threats. Social instability has received more attention as the
PRC's economic reform and political succession enter a crucial
period. Hegemonism and power politics are regarded as long-term
threats to China's sovereignty and international influence and are
managed

 Page 138
accordingly, with the exception of a few situations that may call for
immediate responses. Strategic challenges are potential rather than
actual: there are no immediate antagonists, and the balance of power
in East Asia is still evolving. Since 1994 the PRC has been
increasingly concerned over Taiwan's possible separation, and the
Taiwan issue could become even more prominent in the future.
Some tensions exist between the various security concerns. For
instance, to speed up economic growth, China should close or
reorganize many state-owned enterprises that have incurred heavy
losses due to poor management and administration. Such reform,
however, would aggravate the already widespread unemployment and
seriously endanger social stability as well as regime security. Because
social and political stability is the overriding concern, reform of the
state-owned enterprises has been postponed. Similarly, there is tension
between the goals of economic growth and unification. If the PRC
uses force to address the Taiwan issue, its economic development will
suffer tremendously; however, if Taiwan declares independence, the
PRC leaders will have no choice but to resort to force. The PRC
leadership seems resolved that in such an event, economics should
give way to territorial integrity.
Security threats can be divided into two groups according to their
nature and perceived consequences. Challenges to the PRC's
sovereignty, territorial integrity, and regime security endanger the
state's identity and values and thus have primary importance; these
threats are generally assessed in zero-sum terms and are not regarded
as subject to compromise, although minimal concessions could be
made under certain circumstances. Other security threats are viewed
as less fundamental and to a certain extent negotiable.
The broad articulation of security in the PRC not only exists at the
level of rhetoric but also is embodied in the state's policy and practice.
China's centralized political structure enables the government to
pursue an integrated approach to various security issues. On the
operational level, various government branches such as the ministries
of defense, foreign affairs, national security, public security, and
foreign trade and economic cooperation play their respective roles in
dealing with different aspects of national security. They analyze the
sources and consequences of threats and plan and implement policies.
On the decision-making level, the members of the CCP's
Politbureauespecially the Central Military Commission, the Central
Leading Small Group on Politics and Law, and the Central Leading
Small Group on Foreign Affairsare responsible for formulating overall
national security strategy and coordinating the efforts of various
branches.
Within the established political structure, the military is emerging as

 Page 139
an independent and crucial actor in the state's security policy making
process. From the 1950s to the 1980s, the top CCP and state leaders
were also the founders of the PLA. When they projected China's
security policy on behalf of the CCP and the government, they
naturally represented the military as well. The PLA had no notion of
the need to make its voice heard in the decision-making circle. Now
the situation is different. The present top leaders do not have the
background that would allow them to exercise absolute authority over
the army. The military finds it difficult to identify with civilian leaders
and to be receptive to whatever major decisions they make. The PLA
now seeks to argue strongly for its own interests and views. In fact,
there are signs in recent years that the military takes a tougher stance
than the government on some issues, including Sino-American
relations, Taiwan, and the South China Sea disputes.
Approaches to National Security
During dynastic times, China accumulated rich experience in dealing
with threats posed by the surrounding barbarians. "Strategies of
coping with barbarians" (zhi yi zhi dao) included
· maintaining internal stability and thereby leaving outsiders no
opportunities to exploit
· maintaining moral and cultural superiority to the barbarians so as
to draw their admiration, respect, and loyalty
· engaging in skillful diplomatic maneuvers, such as "playing
barbarians against barbarians" (yi yi zhi yi) and "associating with
those in the distance while attacking those in the vicinity" (yuan
jiao jin gong)
· applying the carrot and stick judiciously (en wei bing shi) so as to
deter barbarians from attempting to invade.
These and other such strategies still have lingering effects on the
PRC's security thinking.
China's security strategy is made up of three interrelated and mutually
reinforcing components. The first is the maintenance of internal
stability. Internal stability is in itself a paramount security goal, and it
is also a prerequisite for the advancement of other security objectives,
such as economic development and international influence.
The second component is building China's "comprehensive national
strength." As of the late 1980s China had developed the notion of
comprehensive national strength, which holds that the optimal
approach

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to national security is to strengthen all the dimensions of national
powereconomic, technological, political, social, and military. By
increasing its overall national strength, China will be able to achieve
domestic cohesion and maintain internal stability, improve its security
position with regard to other powers, and be better equipped to deal
with external threats.
The third aspect of China's security strategy consists of diplomatic
maneuvers. Skillful engagement with other countries, international
institutions, and regimes is supposed to create a more favorable
external environment that will promote internal stability and economic
growth, enhance China's international status, and enhance its
influence in the world arena.
Maintaining Internal Stability
The approach to internal stability comprises three dimensions:
ensuring regime survival, maintaining social stability, and preserving
territorial integrity.
As noted earlier, regime survival is a key security concern. Measures
adopted in this regard include political and legal suppression,
education, and accommodation. According to the PRC Criminal Law,
people involved in attempts to overthrow the present regime and the
socialist system would be held guilty of "counterrevolution" and
subject to severe punishment.

11 For instance, the Tiananmen Square student protest in the summer

of 1989 was labeled and suppressed as a "counterrevolutionary riot."
Subsequently, the CCP and the government placed greater emphasis
on ideological education and political propaganda with the goal of
deepening the public's faith in the CCP's leadership. Most significant,
in order to ameliorate the economic and political grievances of the
populace, the PRC is speeding up the tempo of its economic
development as well as the promotion of "socialist democracy."
China's legislature, the People's Congress, for example, has since the
mid-1980s been vested with greater power to supervise the work of
the government. In China's countryside, village and town councils are
now formed through election rather than appointment.

The response to the Tiananmen Square incident is typical of the PRC's

approach to regime security. When the students began to take to the
streets, the government set the propaganda machine in motion. Beijing
asserted that a handful of people with ulterior motives were instigating
students to create chaos and to challenge the leadership of the CCP,
and vowed to stand firm against the uprising. Such psychological
warfare was designed to deter students from escalating their protest.
When the students' protest spread and drew wide support from other

 Page 141
sectors of the body politic, Beijing attempted to appease and
accommodate them by agreeing to enter into a dialogue with the
students and to entertain some of their ''reasonable" demands.
However, once the student movement had reached such a scale as to
directly threaten regime stability, the CCP resorted to force: troops
were called in to impose martial law and dispel the protesters from
Tiananmen Square. After the incident, Beijing once again set its
propaganda machine in full motion to educate the people, especially
the students, on how the internal and external hostile forces had
plotted and collaborated to manipulate student protest and incite riots
with the aim of toppling the CCP and creating chaos to weaken China
and turn it into a vassal of the West.
To deal with the problem of social instability, the PRC has adopted a
series of measures. By reorganizing administrative and political
organizations at the village and town levels, Beijing has attempted to
improve its social control. By establishing the anticorruption division
within the procuratorial organs at various levels and by launching a
nationwide anticorruption campaign, the government endeavors to
hold back corruption and mitigate the public's anger. Because
economic inequality has become a critical issue, the central
government has formulated a set of social and economic policies to
boost the development of the poor areas. "Aid-the-poor" projects are
under way to help the backward rural areas to shake off poverty as
soon as possible. From 1996 to 2000, the state government plans to
grant more preferential economic treatment and more resources to the
underdeveloped areas. Aimed at regulating personal income gaps and
alleviating the contradictions arising from the great disparity between
high and low income levels, efforts have been made to reform the
personal tax system. A new individual income tax law went into effect
as of January 1994. According to the new taxation system, personal
income tax is levied on high-income earners, while medium-and low-
income earners are granted reduced rates or exempted from personal
income taxes (Li 1994).
The PRC has formed an effective law enforcement network to fight
organized crime. A number of laws have been introduced against
smuggling and drug-related crimes. The Ministry of Public Security
has also set up an anti-organized crime division to oversee the fight
against gangs. At the same time, to make such efforts more effective,
China maintains close cooperation with other countries through
Interpol and the judicial assistance system. The State Council
established the National Narcotics Control Commission (NNCC) in
1990 to push forward the national antidrug campaign. One of China's
key measures to crack down on drug crimes is a system of strict
checks on drug traf-

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fickers in transit. Public security organs and customs officials in all
localities have effectively coordinated their efforts to reduce the
menace of drugs (Hong 1995; Beijing Review 1992, 1994a).
A combination of suppression and appeasement has been used to
address threats posed by ethnic minority separatist movements.
According to the PRC's Criminal Law, persons involved in separatist
activities can be imprisoned for a period of ten years to life. In 1989,
when separatist riots broke out in Lhasa, the central government
enforced martial law in the city; instigators and chief participants of
the riots were arrested and put on trial. In Xinjiang and Inner
Mongolia, local public security organs make relentless efforts to
eliminate any separatist activities and organizations.
On the other hand, Beijing views political, social, and economic
appeasement as an indispensable part of the strategy to manage
separatism. For instance, Beijing has been calling for negotiations
with the exiled Tibetans headed by the Dalai Lama. Beijing declares
that provided the Dalai Lama recognizes Tibet as an inseparable part
of China, completely abandons his idea of Tibetan independence, and
stops engaging in separatist activities, the central government will
accept an end to his exile and welcome his return to China (Beijing
Review 1994b). To eliminate conditions that are considered conducive
to separatism, the PRC formulated the Law on Regional National
Autonomy, which guarantees the right of the national minorities to
self-government. A variety of preferential policies have been put in
place for the national minority areas. For instance, the minority people
are not required to abide by the national birth-control policy, which is
strictly carried out among the Han. The state government provides
financial and other assistance for the preservation and development of
minority religions and cultures. Most important, the central
government has been paying greater attention to improving the
welfare of the minority people and to accelerating social and
economic progress in ethnic minority regions. As President Jiang
Zemin pointed out, "To strengthen national unity, consolidate frontier
defence and promote economic development nationwide, it is
extremely important to bring about faster development in areas
inhabited by people of minority nationalities" (Jiang 1992: 22). To
further this objective, the state government tilts toward the minority
regions in the distribution of resources. Beginning with the Eighth
Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development
(1990-95), more allocations have been directed to promoting minority
economic prosperity. Meanwhile, economically developed regions are
encouraged to help the minority economies through investment,
technology transfer, and training of workers. In addition, Beijing has
pursued a

 Page 143
policy of encouraging Han people to settle in ethnic minority regions,
especially Xinjiang, not only to guard against the separatist influence
but also to promote the development of the border areas.
Augmenting Comprehensive National Strength
Central to comprehensive national strength are economic and military
power, an idea reflected in a slogan put forward by PRC leaders in the
early 1990s: fu guo qiang bing (rich country and strong army).
Rich Country
Economic growth, as the key to the development of overall national
strength, has become the top priority on the national agenda. The PRC
leaders have formulated a "three-step strategy" for China's national
economic development. The first step (1981-2000) is to make China's
gross national product in year 2000 quadruple that of 1981; the second
step (2001-2010) will try to secure a 100 percent increase in China's
GNP within ten years; the third step (2011 to around 2050) will be
aimed at turning China into a moderately developed country by the
middle of the twenty-first century.
To accomplish these goals, Beijing attaches special importance to the
creation of a favorable environment for economic growth. Responses
to external challenges to economic security include enhancing
regional and global economic cooperation, diversifying China's
external economic links, playing the "market card" to prevent the
politicization of economic issues, fighting economic espionage, and
protecting its maritime resources.
The trend toward regional grouping in world economic development
has impelled the PRC to formulate new strategies and policies for
foreign trade. The opening of China's economy, originally confined to
the coastal areas, has extended to border and inland areas. An omni-
directional opening pattern has been established to promote economic
ties with other nations in the region. Currently, the Asia-Pacific
markets account for 70 percent of China's imports and exports, and 85
percent of its foreign investment comes from within the region (Gao
1995: 19). Beijing is actively involved in the activities of Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation (APEC) and other regional economic
organizations, and has called for intensification of regional economic
interactions. The PRC supports the proposal put forward by Malaysia
to establish an East Asian Economic Caucus (EAEC), anticipating the
positive role of such a group in promoting economic cooperation
among its East Asian members to counterbalance rising protectionism
in other regions. In addition, China

 Page 144
seeks to participate in a comprehensive multilateral trade system and
has participated in and signed the Final Act of the Uruguay Round of
multilateral trade negotiations. Now the PRC is bargaining hard for
admission to the World Trade Organization.
China's efforts to resist protectionism and promote regional
integration face some problems. While advocating a more open and
liberal world trade system so as to enable the steady expansion of its
overseas markets, the PRC as a developing economy considers it
necessary to protect its national industries. Such inconsistency in the
country's trade policies will not disappear in the near future. Growing
economic interdependence naturally calls for more cooperation and
compromise on political and security issues, thus posing a challenge
to the PRC's conception of sovereignty as well as to its usual practice
with respect to political and security affairs.
Confronted with the U.S. policy of seeking "free and fair" trade and of
linking economic and political issues, the PRC has adopted a plural
market strategy to diversify its foreign economic links. China tries to
reduce its dependence on the U.S. market and expand its economic
interaction with Japan, South Korea, ASEAN, and the European
Union, while at the same time skillfully playing its market card. For
example, every year the United States has to decide whether or not to
extend China's MFN status. Before the decision is made, China sends
a large "purchasing delegation" to the United States to spend as much
as several billion U.S. dollars. To force the United States to soften its
position on China's entry into the WTO as a developing country,
Premier Li Peng, during his trip to Europe in April 1996, made a $1.9
billion deal with the European Air Bus Companya contract that could
have gone to Boeingand the move proved to be successful.
In the face of the intensifying international intelligence war, the PRC
promulgated its first patent law in 1985 and its first national security
law in 1993. The national security apparatus has been devoting
considerable manpower and resources to the fight against foreign
economic espionage. Because most Chinese people think of security
only in terms of the military, territorial integrity, and regime survival
dimensionsneglecting the economic dimensionthe government must
continue to remind the public to maintain economic and technological
secrecy. However, the PRC has long adopted excessively high and
wide secrecy standards, which tends to blur people's concept of
secrecy and make it difficult to keep real secrets. Further, China lacks
sophisticated technology and the necessary funds to fight economic
espionage effectively. Therefore, the PRC has still a long way to go
before it can fully guarantee its economic security (Fang 1993: 17-19;
Yan 1993: 9).

 Page 145
Since the late 1980s and especially after the Persian Gulf War, the
PRC has attached greater importance to preserving its maritime
resources. As a high-ranking PLA navy officer emphasized in April
1992, "it is high time for China to readjust its marine strategy and
make more efforts to recover the oil and gas resources in the South
China Sea" (Gao 1992). In early 1996 the National People's Congress
passed the Laws of Territorial Waters and Contiguous Zones,
reaffirming China's sovereignty over the Nansha Islands.

12In May 1996 the National People's Congress ratified the U.N.
Convention on the Law of the Sea, which provides a legal basis for
China's claim to a 200-nautical-mile Exclusive Economic Zone.
Beijing has also accelerated the development of its maritime resources
in recent years. For instance, since 1992 China has been cooperating
with a U.S. oil company, Crestone Energy Corporation, to explore oil
and natural gas in the South China Sea. According to the Ninth Five-
Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development (1996-
2000), marine output is expected to reach 5 percent of the gross
domestic product. To protect its maritime rights and interests, the PRC
now grants a higher priority to the modernization of its navy. The
PLA has abandoned its long-held "coastal defense strategy" and
adopted the ''green water defense strategy," thus expanding China's
strategic frontier to cover the various maritime territories claimed by
Beijing.

Strong Military
Although in the early 1980s Deng Xiaoping had come to the
conclusion that a world war could be averted for the foreseeable
future, the PRC's defense doctrine remained unchanged. With the goal
of being prepared for "fighting a people's war under modern
conditions," military reform, as part of the overall defense
modernization drive, focused on reducing military personnel,
streamlining and reorganizing the force structure, establishing army
groups and special troops, and raising the caliber of both professional
soldiers and regular army troops. The rationale for the reform was the
need to prepare the PLA for fighting a major anti-aggression war on
Chinese territory. The "people's war" theorywhich stresses manpower
rather than weapons and technology, and embraces such tactics as
"luring the enemy in deep" (you di shen ru), "protracted war of
attrition" (chi jiu zhan), and "entire nation in arms" (quan min jie
bing)was regarded as still relevant and in need of only some
adjustment and supplementation.
During the late 1980s this defense doctrine was challenged by some
security analysts who suggested that of the three kinds of war that the
defense strategy envisioneda world war, a large-scale war of
aggression against China, and border conflicts or limited warthe first
two were

 Page 146
unlikely to occur and the third would be China's major defense
concern. This argument called for a fundamental revision of China's
defense doctrine as well as a series of reforms in the PLA's force
structure, training, operational doctrine, and weapons systems (Chu
1994: 186-88).
The end of the Cold War and especially the outbreak of the Persian
Gulf War prompted the PLA leadership to turn to the school of limited
warfare. A new defense doctrine was developed that emphasized the
following points:
1. What China will probably encounter in the future is limited, local
war on its periphery. Such conflict is likely to be of low intensity
and short duration, emphasizing the joint operation of air and naval
power, and the use of high-tech weapons systems and the most
advanced military technology.
2. Given the nature of the warfare and the necessity of protecting
China's economic centers in the coastal areas, the PLA should do its
best to engage the enemy on the periphery and thus to minimize the
economic damage that would be inflicted by the extension of war
into the interior.
3. The ability to fight such a war successfully entails the creation of
a smaller, highly trained and motivated, technologically advanced,
and well-coordinated military force operating under a modern
combined arms tactical operations doctrine utilizing sophisticated
Command, Control, Communication and Intelligence (C3I) systems
(Swaine 1996: 203).
The new defense doctrine of "limited local war under modern
conditions" requires readjustment of the PLA's force structure. The
order of priority in the traditional force structure was ground, air, and
naval forces, with the ground forces constituting a vast majority. The
new doctrine changed the order of priority to naval, air, and ground
forces. The navy and air force have high priority in the modernization
drive, while in the modernization of ground forces, the emphasis is on
technical arms (Liu 1993: 2). To develop the PLA's rapid reaction
capability, efforts have been made to build some well-equipped "first
units."
The major problem the PLA would face in fighting a high-tech limited
war is its outdated weaponry and its poor C3I system. Therefore,
military reform stresses the development of air and naval electronic
warfare systems, improved missile and aircraft guidance systems,
precision-guided missiles, communications and early-warning
satellites, and in-flight refueling technology (Swaine 1996: 203-4).
While mobilizing its military research and development capability,
China also has purchased from Russia a variety of advanced weapons,
including Su-27

 Page 147
fighters, S-300 surface-to-air missiles, and Kilo-class conventional
submarines. Other weapons are reported to be on the shopping list:
MiG-31 fighters, Tu-22M bombers, Il-76 airborne warning and
control system aircraft, and an airborne early-warning system (Sutter
and Kan 1994: 11).
After a decade of relative decline, the PRC's defense budget has
experienced double-digit growth since 1989,

13 partly to offset the impact of high inflation and partly to upgrade

military equipment. Official figures show that in 1994 China's
expenditure on national defense totaled 55.071 billion RMB yuan, of
which 34.09 percent was spent on living expenses, 34.22 percent on
maintenance of activities, and 31.69 percent on equipment
(Information Office of the State Council of the PRC 1995: 14). This
means that less than one-third of the PRC's military expenditure was
devoted to updating the PLA's weapons inventory. However, some
foreign observers believe that the actual defense spending and
allocations for weapons development are much higher than the official
figures, though they differ on the exact amount.14

PRC leaders recognize that it will not be possible to rapidly narrow

the technological gap between the PLA and its counterparts in the
developed nations. Partly for this reason and, more important, to
secure a reliable balance of power among the major powers, the PRC
works hard to modernize its strategic weaponry. Efforts have focused
on the qualitative improvement of intercontinental and intermediate-
range ballistic missile capabilities and the creation of a more potent,
though small, tactical nuclear arsenal for possible use in local war
scenarios (Swaine 1996: 204). These efforts explain why China
continued to conduct nuclear tests until 1996 even though the United
States, Russia, and Britain had declared a moratorium on nuclear tests.
In this connection some have suggested that Chinese nuclear doctrine
is in the midst of change. Alastair Johnston, for example, suggests that
since the late 1980s, the PRC strategists have developed a concept of
"limited deterrence" to describe the kind of deterrent China ought to
have (Johnston 1996). Limited deterrence rests on a limited war-
fighting capability aimed at communicating China's ability to inflict
costly damage on the adversary at every rung on the escalation ladder
and thus to deny the adversary victory in a nuclear war. Given that
China does not presently have the operational capabilities to
implement this vision of limited deterrence, Johnston argues that over
the next decade or so Beijing will gradually seek to shift from a
minimum strike-back assured destruction posture toward one of
limited war-fighting. Johnston admits that his analysis of the nature
and implications of limited deterrence thinking requires additional
testing. Meanwhile, other studies suggest

 Page 148
that although Beijing is clearly committed to modernizing and
perfecting its strategic nuclear forces, China's long-term thinking
about the use of nuclear weapons will combine with constraints on
scarce resources to limit Beijing to a second-strike, countervalue
nuclear doctrine (Institute for National Strategic Studies, U.S.
National Defense University 1997: 50).
Diplomatic Maneuvering: Struggle and Cooperation
To bolster its major-power status and to create a favorable
international environment for its domestic economic development, the
PRC, drawing upon its profound diplomatic tradition, has developed a
set of sophisticated strategies.
The first is freedom of action. The PRC leaders believe that an
independent diplomatic posture enables China to exploit every
possible opportunity in international relations and thus maximizes its
weight. As Deng Xiaoping put it, "China is in itself a poor country,
[so] why do people talk about China-U.S.-USSR 'great triangle'? It's
just because we act independently and keep the initiative in our own
hands" (Deng 1993: 311). China once entered into an alliance with the
Soviet Union, and in the late 1970s it approached the United States to
form an anti-Soviet united front. In the early 1980s, however, the PRC
leaders decided that China should abstain from forming an alliance
with any country or group of countries, and from joining any military
bloc, because alliances and tight alignments limit freedom of
maneuver (Xue and Pei 1988: 340).
The second approach, which is deeply rooted in China's strategic
tradition, is to create or maintain a favorable balance of power in the
world arena. Currently, the PRC leaders believe that the United States,
as the only remaining superpower, constitutes the primary constraint
on China's international maneuvering. China, therefore, seeks the
following:
 · To divert U.S. pressure by developing close political or strategic
relations with real and potential adversaries of the United States,
such as Russia, India, and Iran
· To isolate the United States by exploring contradictions among its
alliesfor instance, using economic incentives to lure Japan and the
Western European countries to pursue China policies different from
that of the United States
· To balance U.S. influence by forging strong ties with the Third
World states through economic aid and efforts to defend their rights
and interests internationally

 Page 149
· To undermine the dominant role of the United States in world
affairs by encouraging multipolarity in the post-Cold War power
structure
The third approach is to deal with other nations, as much as possible,
in bilateral settings. Beijing dislikes and lacks confidence in its ability
to manage complex multilateral relations, preferring the simplicity of
bilateral interactions. At the same time, bilateralism allows China to
exploit its relative superiority over a weaker adversary. When the
PRC is confronted with a stronger power, such as the United States,
bilateral dealings prevent the strong rival from mobilizing the support
of other countries and international organizations.

15So far China has been involved in bilateral negotiations over border
disputes or in diplomatic or security dialogues with Vietnam, India,
the United States, Japan, and ASEAN. Following this approach,
Beijing rejects the idea of discussing the South China Sea sovereignty
dispute in the ARF and insists on negotiating in bilateral settings with
other parties to the dispute. (Because Beijing claims sovereignty over
the entire Spratlys, multilateral discussion could cause Beijing to be
confronted with a united front formed by other disputants, thus putting
it in a disadvantageous position.)

A final approach is to pursue omnidirectional diplomacy. To create a

favorable international environment, the PRC leadership manages its
foreign relations pragmatically. As Deng Xiaoping emphasized in the
wake of the Tiananmen Square incident, "In spite of troubles in
Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, in spite of the G-7 sanctions
against us, we stick to one principle: to continue to deal with the
Soviet Union and manage well relations with it; to continue to deal
with the United States and manage well relations with it; to continue
to deal with Japan and Europe and manage well relations with them"
(Deng 1993: 359).
The practice of omnidirectional diplomacy does not mean that China
weighs equally each of its bilateral ties. Instead, there are two focal
points: relations with the developed nations, particularly the United
States (essential to China's access to international markets, capital,
and technology), and relations with surrounding countries
(indispensable for securing long-term tranquility on China's periphery
and for reducing external assistance to and support for the ethnic
minority separatists).
One of the most conspicuous features of China's foreign policy since
the 1980s has been the shift in its attitude toward the international
system. Before the 1980s the PRC leadership harbored deep suspicion
of the international system. There are three main reasons for this
attitude, all with historical roots. First, from the 1840s to the 1940s
China's record of engaging the modern world-system-vastly different
from the

 Page 150
Sinocentric world orderwas basically a failure, and after 1949 the
PRC was isolated from the international community for almost thirty
years. Such experiences inevitably weakened China's confidence in
dealing with global society. Second, China's strong sense of
vulnerability caused Beijing to believe that the Western-dominated
international society was full of "traps and tricks," so that China could
become an easy victim. Such distrust was exacerbated by the fact that
China was not writing the rules of the game. Finally, China's domestic
politics, its level of socioeconomic development, and its very limited
connection with the outside world caused the PRC leaders to adopt a
traditional concept of sovereignty. In their opinion, the best way to
protect China's sovereignty from being violated was to shun
international institutions and regimes.
Much has changed since China opened its doors to the outside world.
State actors seem more flexible than before in dealing with
international competitors. The extent to which China would be willing
to share sovereignty with them depends on how such sharing would
affect its own political and material interests, and on whether China
would have a role in framing the rules. The most difficult thing would
be for Beijing to give any external actor a voice in China's internal
politics. To yield on that issue, PRC leaders believe, would not only
violate China's core value of sovereignty but also undermine the
legitimacy of the regime and its political control.
In the military-security arena, China has been willing to make some
compromises on certain issues after deliberately weighing gains and
losses. For example, China consented to abide by the Missile
Technology Control Regime in exchange for some trade-offs with the
United States. But, because China is not a formal party to the treaty
and has no voice in setting the rules, its compliance is reluctant and
controversial. In 1995 the PRC published its first defense white paper.
Although others have been critical of the paper, given China's military
tradition of secrecy its publication was a notable event. The act was
intended to dispel the notion of the "China threat" and to respond to
the consensus reached within the ARF, of which China is a member.
On the economic front, as China endeavors to merge its own economy
with the global economy, Chinese leaders are well aware of the
necessity to play by the rules of the international game. Beijing has
gradually become accustomed to adjusting its trade policy and
practice to the international standard; this is especially obvious in
China's efforts to join the GATT and the WTO. In the environmental
sector, China recognizes that environmental problems sometimes
transcend national and regional boundaries and that a global approach
is in the interest of all countries and regions. In this regard, China has
committed to certain

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international requirements and cooperated with international actors.
But Beijing insists that each country enjoys sovereign rights over its
national resources and biological species and has the right to draw up
and carry out its own strategies for environmental protection and
development in light of national conditions (Li 1992: 8).
The PRC understands that the best way to defend its interests in the
international political, economic, and security realms is to make its
own voice heard in the rule-making process. For example, when the
United States and its allies tried to pass a resolution at the annual
session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights condemning
China's human rights record, Beijing proposed that the commission be
reformed in order to end unequal application of human rights
standards, to prevent abuse of the supervision mechanism, and to stop
trampling on the U.N. charter, which stipulates the principle of
noninterference in other countries' internal affairs. The PRC also
suggested that the commission should prohibit a few big powers from
imposing their ideological values on others, should give priority to
addressing large-scale violations of human rights such as racism and
foreign invasions, and should pay more attention to the right of
development (Beijing Review 1995a). In the case of nuclear
nonproliferation, Beijing has advocated an international convention
specifying no first use of nuclear weapons, as well as an international
legal instrument to safeguard nonnuclear states and nuclear-weapons-
free zones against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons (China
Daily 1995).
The PRC's efforts to enhance its international influence have
encountered some problems. As China merges into the international
system, it has to show respect for and commitment to international
practices and standards, and it must become responsive to
international consensus. That necessity inevitably limits the PRC's
opportunity for independent action. The issue of nuclear testing is a
typical example. Although China may need to conduct more tests to
upgrade its nuclear weaponry, it had to respond to international
pressure after the negotiation of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban
Treaty by declaring a moratorium on nuclear testing in July 1996.
The growth of multilateralism in the post-Cold War era has
challenged the PRC's preference for bilateralism. Like it or not, China
has had to participate in the ARF and discuss regional security issues
in a multilateral framework. As the role of ideology in Chinese
foreign policy has declined, ties between China and other Third World
countries have loosened, and the international resources that China
can draw upon are decreasing. As the PLA's modernization drive
proceeds and China's rapid economic growth raises the prospect of its
becoming a world

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power, the concern over a China threat grows in neighboring
countries, thus straining the PRC's good-neighbor policy.
Preserving Territorial Integrity: The Case of Taiwan
The Taiwan issue stands as a prototype of the PRC's use of multiple
means to deal with a vital security concern. Beijing's strategy consists
of three elements: international pressure, military deterrence, and
political and economic inducements. Beijing holds to the "one China"
principle in its foreign relations: "There is but one China and Taiwan
is a part of China; the government of the People's Republic of China is
the only legitimate government of China." The PRC insists that any
country that has diplomatic ties with Beijing should not establish
official relations with Taipei. It endeavors to frustrate every effort on
the part of Taiwan to join international organizations as a separate
sovereign state and seeksthrough diplomatic pressures and economic
aidto reduce Taiwan's international recognition so as to isolate it in the
world arena.
The PRC has always kept military pressure on Taiwan to prevent it
from separating. Beijing declares that it will use every possible means,
including military force, to preserve national territorial integrity.
While indicating that it will do its best to resolve the Taiwan issue
peacefully, the PRC refuses to reject the use of force. For instance,
Beijing saw the visit to Cornell University by Taiwanese leader Lee
Teng-hui in June 1995 as an overt effort to create "two Chinas" or
"one China, one Taiwan." In response, the PLA conducted a series of
military exercises in the Taiwan Straits to send a warning to Taipei.
Before Taiwan's first presidential election in March 1996, the PLA
launched missiles in waters adjacent to Taiwan in an attempt to
prevent the Taiwanese from voting for the secessionists. Although
such actions have created some tensions in the Taiwan Straits,
military measures are believed to be the most effective means of
deterring Taiwan from seeking de jure independence.
At the same time Beijing has used political and economic measures in
an attempt to draw Taiwan closer to the mainland. In the early 1980s
Deng Xiaoping created the formula "one country, two systems" as a
way to achieve national reunification. According to this idea, Taiwan
would retain its present political system and its own army after
reunification. Since the early 1990s two nongovernmental bodies, the
Beijing-based Association for Relations across the Taiwan Straits
(ARATS) and the Taiwan-based Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF),
have held several rounds of talks on issues such as the repatriation of
airplane hijackers, illegal immigration, and the settlement of fishing
disputes. On January 30, 1995, President Jiang Zemin made an eight-
point proposal on the development of relations between the two sides
of the Taiwan Straits

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and the peaceful reunification of China. In his speech, Jiang stressed
that "Chinese should not fight their compatriots," making explicit the
PRC's stance on the use of force against Taiwan (Beijing Review
1995c).

16

Special attention has been paid to enhancing cross-straits economic

interaction. In Beijing's calculus, increased commerce will lead
Taiwan to depend heavily for its economic growth on the relatively
cheap labor, huge market, and rich resources of the mainland, thus
creating a great stake for Taiwan in reunification with the mainland.
To this end, since the late 1970s the PRC has been appealing for and
encouraging direct commercial, communication, and transportation
links between the two sides of the straits. PRC leaders have
formulated a series of preferential policies to attract Taiwanese
investment to the mainland. Beijing's "market attraction strategy" has
been partly successful. By the end of 1996, Taiwan's total investment
in the mainland exceeded $20 billion, and investment in the mainland
accounted for 80 percent of total external investment by Taiwanese
industry. Cross-straits trade in 1996 totaled $22.2 billion; the
mainland had become Taiwan's biggest export market and the
number-one source of trade surplus (Tamura 1996; Central News
Agency 1997).17
The PRC's policy toward Taiwan has met with both successes and
problems. So far Beijing has been quite successful in preventing the
international community from recognizing Taiwan as a sovereign
state. Cross-straits economic, cultural, and social links have expanded
significantly since the late 1980s. Because Hong Kong has been
returned to China, direct commercial, communication, and
transportation between Taiwan and the mainland will be inevitable
and will greatly advance Beijing's objective of seeking unification
through integrating Taiwan into a web of wide links with the
mainland. Further, China believes that its military exercises in the
Taiwan Straits in 1995 and early 1996 demonstrated to the world,
especially the United States, its determination to prevent Taiwan from
breaking away. On the other hand, the PRC's Taiwan policy has been
challenged by the growing influence of the Democratic Progressive
Party and its supporters on the island. In the near term, it appears that
Beijing will be unable to compel Taiwan to accept its "one China"
policy and discuss unification. Although it is unlikely that Taiwan will
risk declaring independence in the foreseeable future, the prospect of
unification is still remote. It is largely dependent on social, economic,
and political developments on the mainland as well as the flexibility
of the PRC's policy toward Taiwan.

<><><><><><><><><><><><>

 Page 154
In sum, the broad definition of security and the changing nature of
security threats in the post-Cold War era have led to diversification of
approaches to security in China. In comparison with the Cold War era,
when China relied heavily on military and diplomatic means to
enhance national security, in recent years the PRC has introduced a
wide range of political, economic, and social measures for that
purpose. Diplomatic and economic means are used most frequently,
while military means have become less relevant. For instance, from
the 1950s to the 1970s the buildup of military power was the top
priority on China's national security agenda. Since the 1980s,
however, the PRC leadership has made it clear that defense
modernization should proceed at a moderate pace and should not be
pursued at the expense of social and economic development.
Changes in the domestic agenda and in international politics have
caused state actors in the PRC to develop a more positive attitude
toward international economic and political institutions with a view to
promoting China's security interests. This is especially evident on
economic front. During the Mao era, China embraced autarky and had
only very limited connections with the outside world. Deng's "open-
door" policy, however, was aimed at integrating China into the
international economy and making full use of foreign capital,
technology, and markets. At the same time, PRC leaders believe that
China should also exploit the international political
institutionsespecially the United Nationsto increase its influence in the
world arena. For instance, since the adjustments of its foreign policy
in 1982, China has become more and more actively involved in
multilateral diplomacy within the United Nations.
Shifts in domestic priorities and the relaxation of the international
situation, especially the end of the Cold War, have also caused Beijing
to adopt a less confrontational approach to its security interests.
Dialogue, negotiation, compromise, and cooperation have come to
characterize a more rational code of conduct in the PRC's handling of
world affairs. PRC leaders admit that cooperation stands as a
prominent feature of post-Cold War international relations. In their
calculus, the adoption of a cooperative posture not only demonstrates
that China can behave as a responsible power but also best serves
China's national interests by avoiding the potential political and
material costs of confrontation or noncooperation. China's changing
role within the ARFfrom passive to activefor example, indicates that
Beijing has begun to embrace the notion of cooperative security.
Since the late 1980s, the influence of both ideology and geostrategic
thinking on China's foreign policy has markedly declined, and the
PRC's international behavior appears to be more flexible, balanced,
and

 Page 155
rational. China's contribution to the political settlement of the
Cambodian issue (including withholding support for its long-term
ideological ally, the Khmer Rouge), and its help in brokering the U.S.-
North Korean agreement on Pyongyang's nuclear program suggest
that pragmatism figures prominently in China's foreign and security
policies in the post-Cold War era.
Conclusion
China's security thinking and behavior are informed by a wide array
of factors. Beijing's view of the nature of international politics has
grown out of China's experiences during the ''century of humiliation,"
its peripheral position in the international system, and Marxist-
Leninist theory, which stresses contradictions, conflicts, and the
predatory nature of capitalism and imperialism. The role of the state
was defined by the interaction of China's cultural tradition and its
domestic sociopolitical structure, in which the state was installed as a
hegemon with regard to the society, the individual, and the
subnational unit. Security goals are largely determined by a country's
stage of socioeconomic development, its stage of nation-building, and
its domestic priorities and concerns. In comparison with the developed
nations, China remains committed to building a modern nation-state,
and consequently its security practice coincides with the expectations
of the realist paradigm. Finally, these variablesthe PRC leaders' view
of international politics, the role of the state, and China's stage of
nation-buildingcombine to make self-help the foremost principle
governing state action in the pursuit of security.
Realism, however, is not adequate to explain several features of
China's security thinking and practice. The first one is the strong
influence of ideational factors. China's humiliating experience in its
modern history, its profound cultural tradition, and the Marxist-
Leninist ideology together exerted a great impact on China's
worldview and security behavior. The second feature is the
broadening of the scope of security. Following adjustments in China's
domestic priorities and changes in international relations, the notion of
"comprehensive security" has been adopted. In the security equation,
the socioeconomic dimension has become more prominent vis-à-vis
the political-military dimension. The third feature is the salience of
internal concerns. The disappearance of major external military
threats, the end of the Cold War, the growing awareness of the
relevance of economics to overall national strength, and rising
concern with regime security, social stability, and national unification
have all combined to prompt the PRC leadership to turn inward. The
fourth feature is that pursuit of national security through inter-

 Page 156
national cooperationa neoliberal approachhas gained some sway
among the PRC political elites. Though they still harbor suspicion of
international institutions, the PRC leaders are increasingly aware of
the reality of growing interdependence and can hardly resist the
temptation of benefits issuing from international cooperationnot only
in economic and environmental areas but also on some security issues.
Therefore, although the realist model is still critical in explaining
China's security behavior, explanations of Chinese security practice
must also recognize elements of neoliberalism and constructivism.
Among the factors that contribute to the PRC's construction of
security, some (such as cultural tradition and historical experiences)
are relatively stable, whereas others (such as stage of socioeconomic
development, stage of nation-building, domestic sociopolitical
structures, and international environment) are variable. Changes in the
domestic and international contexts will inevitably lead to
reconstruction of China's conception of security. As China's
modernization progresses and as it becomes a stronger power with a
greater vested interest in international stability, its security thinking
and behavior will undergo further change. It is thus important to take
an evolutionary rather than a static view of China's security practice.

 Page 157

4
India
Modified Structuralism
Kanti Bajpai
India is a major actor in Asia and the world as a function of its
geostrategic location, the size of its population, its large and growing
economy, its indigenous technological capability, and its army, which
is the fourth largest in the world. With the termination of the Cold
War and the ongoing reforms in the Indian economy, many Indian and
international observers believe that in the next two or three decades
India could emerge as a great power whose reach extends well beyond
South Asia. How India conceives of its security, therefore, is of
international interest. In keeping with the general thrust of this book,
the present chapter seeks first to explain how and why India's central
decision makers think and act in the security domain as they do, and
second to discuss India's behavior in terms of the various theories that
have been advanced to explain the behavior of states in this regard.
I argue that India's security practice is close to what Stephen Krasner
calls "modified structuralism." In the modified structuralist view,
decision makers operate in "a world of sovereign states seeking to
maximize their interest and power" but under certain conditions
choose to transcend "individualistic calculations of interest" (Krasner
1983b: 7). In a world of sovereign states, Indian decision makers are
primarily concerned with protecting the two major attributes of
sovereignty: territory and independence of foreign policy. To do so,
they understand that their country must be powerful. Their
comprehension of national


 Page 158
power is a broad one that includes three key elementsmilitary
strength, economic development, and internal order. But India's
approach to security also goes beyond this classical conception. Its
decision makers are willing to resort to methods that involve
concessions to rival interests, both external and internal. With external
rivals, these methods include negotiation, regular summitry,
promotion of economic and cultural links between societies,
confidence-building measures, nonalignment, and regional
cooperation. With internal rivals, too, India has negotiated (for
example, reaching peace accords with various ethnic separatists). It
has also attempted to use economic incentives and rewards to end
militant struggles. Most important, it has granted collective rights to
dissatisfied communities and tried to decentralize power within a
federal system of government.
The reason for India's modified structuralism in security affairs, I
argue, is twofold: expediency, arising from deficiencies in national
power; and conviction, based on the existence or evolution of norms
against the untrammeled pursuit of power and exercise of coercion.
Thus, India's conception of security can be understood in terms of
material as well as ideational factors. Over time, our analysis
suggests, India has shifted perceptibly from a modified structuralism
based on conviction and ideational factors to one based on expediency
and material factors. However, with economic growth, India may
move toward cooperative security and a modified structuralism once
again based on conviction.
To substantiate this argument as well as to elucidate Indian security
thinking and behavior, this chapter is organized in four parts. The first
part delineates India's historic conception of security in terms of the
nationalist interpretation of Indian history, which was vital to the
"operational code" of decision makers through the 1950s. The second
part reviews the conceptualizations of security held by Indian strategic
thinkers of the postcolonial period. Once we have abstracted India's
core values from these conceptualizations, the third part discusses the
threats to these values and the responses by India's central decision
makers. The fourth part advances an explanation of India's conception
of security.
Interpreting Indian History
Present-day ideas about national security bear the mark of history.
The influence of the past on the present is not a simple one: it is not
merely a residue, some essential characteristic that inheres in the
present. Nor is the past infinitely malleable. Rather, historical legacies
are interpreted, recovered, and constituted within the limits set by
contemporary

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interests and constraints. India's conceptions of security since
independence, in this sense, owe much to the past. Its leaders have
invested the past with a certain significance that bears upon
contemporary notions of security.
India's security conceptions after independence were informed by
British India's strategic ideas but were not identical to them. For
Britain, India was the linchpin of its empire. Control of India gave
Britain prestige and material power on a world scale. British policies
rested on the postulate that India is vitally located at the juncture of
several regions in Asia and at the top of the Indian Ocean. On the
Asian landmass, it resides between the Middle East, Russia, Central
Asia, China, and Southeast Asia. In the Indian Ocean, it was Britain's
key to controlling an area that extended from the Suez to the Strait of
Malacca. The threats to British control of India were perceived to
derive from the Asian landmass and, subsidiarily, from the ocean. On
land the principal threats were from Russia and China. To protect
India from them, the British constructed a system of "ring fences"
comprising an "inner ring" of Himalayan kingdoms and the tribal
areas of northeastern India and an "outer ring" of the Persian Gulf,
Iran, Afghanistan, and Thailand. The inner ring would be defended by
military power; control of the outer ring would be denied to outside
powers by diplomacy and force (Kavic 1967: 9). By sea, the threats
initially came from other European powers, although by the late
nineteenth century there was little prospect of any real challenge
there. The British navy was the key instrument for the defense of
India from seaborne threats and for the projection of British power
from the Cape of Good Hope to the Strait of Malacca (Kavic 1967: 9).
The view of India as a strategic linchpin was internalized by Indian
nationalists. Indian governments saw great powers and other outsiders
coveting India for geopolitical reasons (Kavic 1967: 20-21). British
policy stressed "forward defense" and ocean control. Independent
India shifted the emphasis. Jawaharlal Nehru had less faith in military
India shifted the emphasis. Jawaharlal Nehru had less faith in military
instruments, though he did not ignore them.

1 Instead he stressed diplomacynonalignment and panchashila

(literally "five virtues" or five principles of moral and proper
conduct)2and the importance of internal political stability in
dissuading outsiders from threatening India (Kavic 1967: 40).

In addition to British conceptions, postindependence governments

also drew on more indigenous visions, even if they were refracted
through colonial lenses. In particular, they drew on an image of Indian
history through the ages and a narrative of successive political
invasions and internal integrations and disintegrations (Nehru 1981:
237-38). The British had helped shape that narrative in order to justify
their rule. In

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the British narrative, imperial rule was a deliverance for Indiansa
liberation from invasion and internal collapse. India was depicted as
having constantly been prey to invasions. The Indian narrative,
however, stressed periods of Indian glory, casting the British in the
role of one among a long line of invaders. Most of the invasions,
according to the nationalist narrative, came through the northwest
passes via present-day Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Europeans were
exceptional in that they came from the sea. These invasions succeeded
because Indians were internally disunited and because they were
backwardnot only in terms of military hardware but also in the art of
war. The incursions of the Europeans were more subtle; they came
posing as traders but stayed to consolidate their commercial niches.
They carved out larger and larger enclaves as they exploited internal
differences between Indians (Nehru 1981: 276-81). India's suspicion
of foreign investment, multinational corporations, and a globalized
economic order can be traced to this reading of colonial history.
India had handled earlier invaders via social integration, but the
Europeans stayed aloof. What marked the Europeans off from the
othersand made them more powerfulwas not just their technology but
their entire social system, which, in its insistence on rationalism and a
relatively egalitarian and competitive civic life, was superior to that of
other conquerors and indeed to India's. Thus Nehru wrote: "The recent
causes of [India's]...decay are obvious enough. She fell behind in the
march of technique, and Europe, which had long been backward in
many matters, took the lead in technical progress. Behind this
technical progress was the spirit of science and a bubbling life and
spirit....New techniques gave military strength to the countries of
western Europe, and it was easy for them to spread out and dominate
the East" (Nehru 1981: 54).
For Nehru and other Indian nationalists, India's history was marked
not just by external threats and relative backwardness on a world scale
but also, significantly, by long and recurring periods of internal
disorder. Golden periods when India was united, well governed,
socially tolerant, culturally and scientifically advanced were
succeeded by dark periods of disunity, tyranny, intolerance, and
cultural and scientific stagnation (Panikkar 1960: 235). For the
nationalists, the chaos at the end of the Mughal Empire and the long
period of British rule signified the torpor into which India had fallen.
Beneath the torpor, though, there was a vitality and an immanent
sense of unity in India, and the nationalist movement had begun to
rediscover and release it. India could be a great force once again if its
internal structure were refurbished.
The past influenced Indian thinking in another way. The precolonial

 Page 161
past and colonial rule combined to produce a political culture that had
an impact on conceptions of security. Ancient Hindu thought and
practice were marked by tension between a deep involvement in social
and political life, on the one hand, and a desire for detachment from
the phenomenal world on the other. Thus Indian elites in the ancient
past seem to have feared that involvement in social and political life
would lead to disorder and violence. Their response was to withdraw
from the world of phenomena and entrust order to those with the
power to coerceeither through naked force or through a highly
structured social system such as caste. The problem was that these
social forces in turn would, by their excessive reliance on coercion,
bring on the very collapse that haunted Indians. Thus India
traditionally seems to have lacked an ability to produce mediating
institutions capable of sustaining social order without excessive
coercion. Nor did the medieval period with its various Muslim
empires produce such institutions.
British liberalism provided a way out from the attachment-detachment
dichotomy. It showed how mediating political institutions could be
built and operated. For postcolonial India, entering a society of nation-
states, this new political culture translated into a predilection for
institutions that promised order without an overreliance on force.
Nehru, who led India into this international society, was therefore
predisposed, broadly speaking, to a liberal institutional viewone that
recognized the realities of a nation-state system but also recognized
that without mediating institutions that system must eventually fall
prey to the disorder and violence it sought to avoid (Rana 1976:
chaps. 7-8).
Apart from such conceptual influences, three key developments in
international relations and domestic politics seemed to confirm and
reconfirm the nationalist reading of India's history: the Cold War,
hostilities between India and Pakistan, and the Communist victory in
China. First, by 1948 the Cold War had begun. Nehru, as early as
China. First, by 1948 the Cold War had begun. Nehru, as early as
1944, had understood that the United States and the Soviet Union
would be the leading powers and would engage in global competition.

3Like the colonial powers who had played Indian rulers off against
one another, the superpowers would approach lesser powers all over
the world with the promise of military and economic aid and then use
them for their own ends. India must therefore resist being drawn into
the competition. Second, the postpartition war between India and
Pakistan over Kashmir meant that the division of the subcontinent had
not solved the basic quarrel in South Asia; indeed it had added a layer
of hostility. The postcolonial conflict between India and Pakistan can
be related to the theme of internal weakness and disunity in the
nationalist narrative. As India historically had been internally divided,
now South Asia was

 Page 162
internally divided between India and Pakistan, two sovereign and
potentially rival states. As Hindus and Muslims had been manipulated
by the colonial power, so India and Pakistan could be manipulated by
"neocolonial" powers who wished to divide South Asia. And third, the
Communist victory in China meant that India would have to rethink
its relations with the Middle Kingdom. Nehru and the Congress had
developed close links with the Chinese Nationalists under Chiang
Kaishek. After 1949, India had to reckon with a new regime in
Beijing. New Delhi could see that, depending on how the relationship
evolved, India could be faced with two hostile neighbors: Pakistan
and China. The new China also fitted into the nationalist narrative: as
a great power that could be turned against India, thus dividing
resurgent Asia against itself, but also as a potential fraternal partner in
continental affairs.
Four strands were therefore central in Indian security thinking in these
first moments after independence. First, India was a strategic and
economic prize and would one day be a great nation. It must be
vigilant in protecting its territory and its independence from external
powers and forces who coveted it, wanted to dominate it, even wished
to destroy it. In particular, India had to be on guard against the
superpowers, Pakistan, China, and, not least, foreign capital. Second,
vigilance must be backed by power. India could not expect to preserve
its borders and independence if it once again lagged behind other
countries. Third, India had to be stable internally. Without internal
resilience and progress, Indian unity and independence could be
undermined by internal and external forces, either separately or in
combination. A strong state was essential if such disintegration was to
be avoided. Fourth, mediating institutions were necessary in both the
international and domestic spheres. Any system, external or internal,
equilibrated purely by coercive power was prone to collapse. Norms
and institutions at the international and domestic levels were viewed
as vital to check "power politics" and to prevent collapse in the long
run.
This cognitive map or operational code, it should be emphasized, has
been abstracted from the ideas of Indian leaders as well as the material
conditions facing India at independence, which reinforced those ideas.
A more systematic statement of Indian security conceptions would
have to wait until the 1960s and 1970s and beyond.
Defining India's Security in the Postcolonial Period
From the vantage point of the present, there is a tendency to think that
India neglected security and defense in the immediate postcolonial
period at both the conceptual and material levels. There are at least
three

 Page 163
reasons for this view. First, after independence the term security was
rarely used. The preferred term was defense. This usage reflected the
relative currencies of the two terms in the Anglo-American world.
British usage favored the term defense, and even in the United States,
which has done so much to popularize the term security, its use was
not as widespread as it would become by the 1950s and 1960s.
Second, with regard to "defense," the extent of public debate in India
was minimal. This relative silence reflected the British inheritance,
which stressed secrecy in colonial military matters; it also reflected
Nehru's worries about "militarism" in India. Third, India's defeat at
the hands of China in 1962, never thoroughly probed, was attributed
to political and administrative oversight and lapseshence the charge
that security and defense were ignored.
A more nuanced retrospective view of the period reveals, however,
that although security (or defense) was neglected by the Indian
National Congress prior to independence, it was an important area of
postindependence endeavor, and that the oversight and lapses were
more of a conceptual than material nature. Nehru himself, his defense
minister and trusted lieutenant, Krishna Menon, the historian and
diplomat K. M. Panikkar, the jurist H. N. Kunzru, as well as an
additional group of officials (e.g., H. M. Patel, H. C. Sarin, P. V. R.
Rao), all were attentive to security/defense, especially in material
terms. Nehru and his team attempted to evolve a new decision-making
system for security/defense, they invested in an indigenous defense
and nuclear industry, and they bought major weapons systems from
abroad when necessary (Chris Smith 1994: 44-73). Indeed, "Indian
decision-makers were more ambitious than they were cautious [in
defense], especially on the procurement side" (Chris Smith 1994: 42).
India's war experiences, in 1962 with China and in 1965 and 1971
with Pakistan, were important milestones in the development of a
more self-conscious discourse that attempted to explicitly define the
nature of security/defense. With each war, there grew a realization
that, materially, Indian security/defense had been and probably was
more or less adequate. What was lacking was integrated decision
making, technical expertise, and sufficient attention to the long-term
assessment of threats, instruments, and strategies.
From the 1970s onward, therefore, a discourse based on the term
security increasingly came to be articulated, not so much within the
state apparatus as by a growing and vocal policy community, located
in New Delhi, consisting of diplomats, bureaucrats, politicians,
soldiers, journalists, and academics. That community increasingly
resorted to the word security and began a conceptual delineation of
the term.

 Page 164
Thus K. Subrahmanyam, perhaps the leading member of India's
strategic community and a former Defense Ministry official, cites the
Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences definition of security, the "ability
of a nation to protect its internal values from external threat." He also
approvingly quotes Walter Lippman's famous definition: "A nation
has security when it does not have to sacrifice its legitimate interests
to avoid war and is able, if challenged, to maintain them by war"
(Subrahmanyam 1972: 67; D. Singh n.d.: 126-27). Similarly, H. C.
Sarin, a former Indian defense secretary, suggests that "for a nation,
security is a state of mind when it is able to apply its resources to
activities it considers germane to its national purpose without having
to be unduly concerned about extraneous considerations" (Sarin 1979:
9).
Subrahmanyam argues that national security goes beyond "threats to
our territorial integrity and sovereignty" to encompass "economic
development plans" and "communal harmony" (Subrahmanyam 1972:
68). This broader conception has been articulated by others as well. A
major seminar in New Delhi, attended by virtually the entire Indian
security community, held that
in the contemporary world threats to security were not limited to threats of
military action or occupation of territory....In defining 'security' it was felt
that too narrow a viewone which looked at it purely in terms of prevention
of military invasions and loss of territoryshould be avoided. 'Security,'
properly understood, was a far wider concept covering to a lesser degree or
greater degree almost all aspects of the domestic situation in a nation, as
well as its military preparedness and foreign policy. (U. S. Bajpai 1983: 9)
Govind Narain, another former defense secretary, writes that national
security "is much wider and much more comprehensive [than
territorial integrity]. It extends virtually to all the freedoms that we
cherish and wish to enjoy and to uninterrupted and uninterfered
implementation of all that we plan, intend or wish to do for our
country" (Narain 1986: 16). Finally, a knowledgeable and articulate
former defense minister, K. C. Pant, argues: "National Security is a
broad concept, which covers political stability, which covers
economic growth, economic strength of the country, and obviously it
covers defense preparedness. These are well recognized aspects of
National Security, and they are in very many ways interdependent"
(Pant 1988: 4).
At the heart of these definitions is, first, the idea that the state is the
referent of security, the entity that must be protected. This is not
particularly surprising. That the state is the primary referent is a
classical formulation: in the Indian Arthashastra tradition as in
Aristotle, a secure state is regarded as a necessary, though not
sufficient, condition for the security of other social entities and
individual citizens (Rana 1976: 149).

 Page 165
Second is the idea that security lies in the protection of a set of
interdependent values: territorial integrity, foreign policy autonomy,
military strength (referred to as ''defense preparedness"), economic
development ("economic growth," "economic strength"), and internal
order ("communal harmony," "domestic situation," "political
stability"). Indian decision makers and analysts do not regard this list
of values as being particularly controversial: a survey of official
documents and pronouncements shows widespread agreement on
them. Third, although there is no clear statement of priorities among
the five core values, we can infer that territorial integrity and political
autonomy are primary, for they are intrinsic to the notion of
sovereignty. The other valuesmilitary strength, economic
development, and internal ordercan be regarded as secondary or
instrumental values in that they are necessary for the fullest attainment
of sovereignty. In other words, control of one's territory and the
freedom to choose one's enemies and friends depends on military,
economic, and domestic political resiliencea classical national security
formulation.
Threats to Core Security Values and India's Responses
A national security conceptualization is incomplete without an
assessment of threats to core values and strategies to contain or
eliminate those threats. As we will see in the following sections, the
threats to virtually every core value are simultaneously external and
internal, with the two levels interacting in ways that exacerbate India's
security problems. The Indian state's strategies for coping with this
complex environment of threats are correspondingly varied, exhibiting
a reliance on force and coercion but also more institutional,
noncoercive, and indirect measures.
Territorial Integrity
Three territorial issues have been of concern to India's decision
makers. First, there was the problem of integrating the various units of
the British Empirethe states of British India plus the Princely States as
well as the French and Portuguese colonial possessions. Second, there
were external threats to India's territorial integrity. And third,
territorial integrity was threatened from within by secessionists aided
and abetted by external foes.
The first challenge was dealt with almost immediately by the
integration of the Princely States into the Indian Union. Most of the
princes quickly acceded to either India or Pakistan, but a few hoped to
stay independent or chose sides that went against the demographic
composi-

 Page 166
tion of their states. Hyderabad and Junagadh were the most important
cases. Indian military action in 1948 ended their independence.
Kashmir was the other key state. When tribal invaders backed by
Pakistani forces attempted to incorporate the state into Pakistan, India
resisted with force. Most of Kashmir was saved and gradually became
integrated into the Indian Union. With regard to the colonial territories
of Pondicherry and Goa, France quickly signed over Pondicherry, and
India argued that Goa, too, must be returned by Portugal because
colonial enclaves were unacceptable on the Indian landmass. Nehru
negotiated, but when the Portuguese proved intransigent India took
Goa by force in 1961.
The second and third challenges to India's territorial integrity persist.
The principal external threats issue from Pakistan and China. The
threat from Pakistan relates primarily to Kashmir; the Chinese threat
concerns the demarcation of the Sino-Indian border.
Kashmir is the subject of the most important quarrel between India
and Pakistan. Since 1948, when Pakistan questioned the accession of
the Princely State of Kashmir to the Indian Union, it has stood at the
center of their troubled relationship. As a result of the 1948 war, the
Kashmiri state was divided between the two countries. Neither accepts
the partition. For India, Kashmir accounts for only about 4 per cent of
its national territory (and only 1 per cent of its total population), but
its presence in the Union represents much more than territorial
completeness. As long as Kashmiris stay within the Union, they
affirm India's secular credentialsand, by extension, falsify Pakistan's
claim that Muslims need a separate homeland in the subcontinent.
Thus Kashmir is vital to India's construction of its national identity.
Since the end of the "long peace" of 1972-89, Kashmir has become
the critical issue in Indo-Pakistani relations. New Delhi is convinced
that Pakistan instigated the present troubles in Kashmir and that it
continues to provide refuge, training, money, and arms to the
continues to provide refuge, training, money, and arms to the
militants.

4India fears that this proxy war could again escalate to full-fledged
combat as in 1948 and 1965. If the situation in Kashmir deteriorates
and Pakistan perceives a weak or distracted government in India, it
might choose to attack.

The territorial conflict with China dates to 1954. At issue are the
Aksai Chin area in the west and the Northeast Frontier Agency
(NEFA) in the east (Steven Hoffman 1990: 9). It appears that China
was willing to swap Aksai Chin for its claims in NEFA (Steven
Hoffman 1990: 8687). If, as Nehru noted, Aksai Chin was a wasteland
without "a blade of grass" (Steven Hoffman 1990: 73-74), that should
have been an attractive offer. However, India opposed the idea of a
swap for a number of reasons. First, Nehru saw China as an
expansionist power: a strong stand

 Page 167
was necessary in order to check it. Second, Nehru faced strong
internal pressures not to swap.

5Third, he calculated that, in the end, with Soviet and U.S. sympathies
on his side, the correlation of forces was against China. Finally,
India's borders were not simply artifacts of colonial rule, as claimed
by the Chinese: they were of precolonial origin and intimately bound
up with an Indian identity that had existed, subconsciously if not
consciously, for hundreds of years (Steven Hoffman 1990: 24-28).

The border war of 1962 was followed by an uneasy but "long peace"
between India and China. China annexed the Aksai Chin and then
withdrew substantially from all other territories it had occupied during
the hostilities. Public opinion in India, in reaction to the humiliation of
defeat, put a stop to any serious negotiations with China for nearly
twenty years, but the earlier hysteria over the border ended. Except for
occasional border skirmishes, the Line of Control has remained stable
since the war.
Apart from the overland challenges from Pakistan and China, India
fears intrusions into its territorial waters and its massive exclusive
economic zone. From their colonial past, Indians have learned that
great-power navies can be harbingers of domination. Since the early
1970s, India has been particularly anxious about the growing presence
of superpower navies in the Indian Ocean. In addition, in the 1980s it
has watched the growth of the Chinese navy and the development of
its capacity to sail the Indian Ocean on a regular basis. Beijing's
deepening relationship with Burma has added to Indian fears. New
Delhi has seen China develop Burmese ports and is worried that the
Chinese navy may make use of the Hanggyi Islands. Finally, India
recognizes that in case of war Pakistan could attack vital oil-
producing areas near Mumbai.
India faces internal threats to territory as well. In Kashmir, Punjab,
and the northeastern states, India has been challenged by a number of
secessionist groups that have been supported by outside powers, most
notably Pakistan and China. Kashmir, since 1989, has become the
country's major internal security problem. Sikh militancy in the
Punjab was a separatist threat from the early 1980s until 1993. Sikh
dissidents found their way to Pakistan and obtained refuge, training,
arms, and money from their hosts. By 1993, India had brought the
militancy under control and the Punjab had reverted to near normalcy.
The seven northeastern states have almost constantly been at war with
New Delhi. The uprisings have been instigated or sustained by
external supportmostly by China (until the mid-1970s) but also by
various groups or state agencies in Burma, Bangladesh, and Pakistan.
The northeast's integrity is also under threat from illegal migration
from Bangladesh.6

 Page 168
Some regard Dhaka as having encouraged migration; others see it as
indifferent. Migration threatens territory in two ways: it feeds
separatist feelings, and it may produce Muslim majorities in those
states, leading to "new Pakistans."

This review suggests that the internal threats to territory are at least as
significant as the external threats and, moreover, that the internal and
external are deeply enmeshed. Pakistan and China present ongoing
military threats to border areas, but the internal threats in Kashmir,
Punjab, and the northeast, compounded by external involvement, have
been the most troubling.
India has relied on a combination of force, negotiations, and indirect
strategies to deal with threats to its territorial integrity. We will see
this in the case of Pakistan and China but also in India's approach to
its ocean territories and to secessionism.
The 1948 war put paid to the hope that partition would pacify South
Asia. Lord Louis Mountbatten had hoped that India and Pakistan
would combine against external threats and contribute to British and
Commonwealth strategic defense. Indeed, he had persuaded the two
sides to agree to a joint defense council that in the postpartition period
would help coordinate defense policies (Hodson 1985: 507-16). When
the Kashmir war broke out, the idea of joint defense collapsed.
Henceforth the Indian army's primary orientation was against
Pakistan. Most of India's land forces were deployed in Kashmir and
along the western border with Pakistan, not on the northern border
with China. This remains India's posture.
Border defense has been supplemented by an interest in confidence-
building measures. Thus, India offered Pakistan a no-war declaration
in 1949, 1953, 1956, 1959, 1968, and 1969. Pakistan responded that
the issue of Kashmir must be resolved before a no-war pact could be
signed. Islamabad advanced its own proposals for joint defense in
1953 and 1959; New Delhi, fearing it would be sucked into the Cold
War, rejected them. Since the early 1980s India has emphasized
confidence-building measures, and the two sides have agreed to the
following: prohibition of attack on nuclear installations and facilities;
advance notification of exercises, maneuvers, and troop movements;
prevention of airspace violations and permission for overflights and
landings by military aircraft; a joint declaration on the prohibition of
chemical weapons; and a hot line between the armed forces.
Confidence-building is intended to stabilize a military situation; it is
not intended to bring about a resolution of the fundamental dispute.
From time to time, India has made efforts to solve the Kashmir
problem and other territorial disputes with Pakistan through bilateral
and multi-

 Page 169
lateral negotiations. In October 1954, the prime ministers of the two
countries attempted to resolve the Kashmir dispute bilaterally; by
1955 there were glimmerings of a settlement based on a plebiscite and
a partition of the state. Two years later, agreement was reached on the
border between India and East Pakistan and on the future of each
country's enclaves in the other's territories. In 1960, the two countries
settled five disputed claims along the West Pakistan-India border.
After the 1962 war with China, the United States and Britain
persuaded India to resume talks on Kashmir. In 1972, after the
Bangladesh war, India and Pakistan agreed in the Simla Agreement to
deal peacefully with their disputes, including Kashmir. India claims
that at Simla, Pakistan agreed to accept a partition of Kashmir along
the Line of Control. Despite its reservations, India also went along
with various U.N.-led efforts to solve the Kashmir problem. These
included the Nimitz and McNaughton mediations, the plebiscite
negotiations (1950), the Dixon plan (1951), and the Graham efforts
(1953-58). The key to most of these interventions was the idea of a
plebiscite in Kashmir. Given its suspicions of Pakistan and of Anglo-
American involvement in the issue,

8India was doubtful about the possibility of a free and fair plebiscite,
and in the end the U.N.'s interventions came to naught.

In addition to force and negotiations, India has tried to engineer less

direct methods of settling disputes. Since the 1965 war, it has argued
for the "normalization" of relations with Pakistan. India envisions a
dense network of government-to-government and society-to-society
links that would enmesh Pakistan and lead Pakistanis to a reevaluation
of basic interests. An issue such as Kashmir, like other territorial
disputes, would in time be superseded. In 1969, in 1972, in 1979 after
the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, and repeatedly thereafter, India has
argued for easing restrictions on trade, travel, and communications
and for the normalization of diplomatic and cultural interactions.
New Delhi's approach to the border dispute with China has also
featured a combination of force, negotiations, and indirection. In 1950
India embarked on a border defense plan that included building roads
and check posts, increasing intelligence activity and patrolling, and
creating border police forces (Kavic 1967: 40). In the late 1950s, in
the key western sector, India pursued the "forward policy," a program
of establishing small, isolated check posts in disputed areas. These
posts and patrols were intended to block intrusive Chinese forces
more aggressively, subvert Chinese control, and threaten
communications and supply lines (Kavic 1967: 169). The policy led to
a heightening of tensions. In 1959, Indian army units were ordered to
evict intruding Chinese forces, and contingency plans were drawn up
for major clashes (Kavic 1967: 86-89).

 Page 170
After the 1962 border war, India built up its forces rapidly, eventually
deploying ten divisions along the front and equipping them with
modern weaponry that outstripped Chinese capabilities. In 1974,
India's nuclear test was a signal that New Delhi would harden its
defense posture. By the early 1980s, India was militarily confident.
When Indian and then Chinese units established a presence in the
Sumdurong Chu Valley in 1986-87, India responded aggressively in
the ensuing confrontation.

9Later in 1987, the Indian military held a massive exerciseonce again

demonstrating that it was prepared to meet force with force.10

While building up its defense forces along the Sino-Indian border,

India also resorted to confidence-building measures in an effort to
avoid border clashes. In May 1980, India and China issued a joint
communiqué on the need to avoid border clashes. The initial list of
formal measures included hot lines between local army commanders,
face-to-face meetings between commanders, and prior notification of
army exercises. In September 1993, additional measures were
instituted: pledges to respect the Line of Actual Control (LOAC);
force reductions along the LOAC; limits on military exercises and
prior notification; consultations between border personnel in a crisis;
measures to prevent air intrusions across the LOAC, with possible
restrictions on air exercises near the line; and expert groups to help
resolve differences over the LOAC.11During President Venkatraman's
visit to China, a joint statement noted that confidence-building
measures were intended to improve relations and lead to "an early,
fair, reasonable, and mutually acceptable settlement" of the border
problem (Ganguly and Greenwood 1996: 226-27). President Jiang
Zemin's return visit in 1996 furthered the confidence-building process.
The 1993 measures were amplified. Most important, the two sides
agreed to reduce forces to "minimal" levels in mutually defined zones,
to scale down "major" categories of armaments in border areas, to
eventually replace military with paramilitary and police forces along
the Line of Actual Control, to stop firing and blasting within 2
kilometers of the Line of Actual Control, and to increase transparency
in military matters.
Concurrently with conventional defense and confidence-building
measures, India has at various times sought to resolve the Chinese
border problem through bilateral negotiations. New Delhi first raised
the border issue with the PRC in 1954. Zhou Enlai assured India that
the problem lay in the "reproduction of the old preliberation maps"
and said that those maps would be revised (Kavic 1967: 63).
Subsequently, New Delhi conceded China's "liberation" of Tibet, gave
up its Tibetan rights in 1954, and signed the "Panchashila" agreement
with Beijing that committed both sides to nonaggression (Kavic 1967:
44). In the late

 Page 171
1950s, Nehru tried to get China to agree to the MacMahon Line as the
border, but Beijing brusquely refused. In January 1960, Zhou
suggested setting up a joint border commission, but India rejected the
idea, contending that the frontier required only minor adjustments.
When New Delhi proposed that officials meet to consider the
documentary evidence, China agreed, but viewed the meeting as a
way of setting up a joint-survey team. The subsequent meetings of
officials charged with resolving the boundary question failed to
achieve much (Steven Hoffman 1990: 88-89). In general, India
favored a legalistic, sector-by-sector approach based on some general
principles to delineate the border, whereas China preferred a more
political approach consisting of concessions and compromise across
sectors.
After the impasse of 1960-61, negotiations ended and were resumed
only in the 1980s. In June 1981, both sides made procedural
concessions. China dropped its insistence on a package deal that
stressed the linkage of adjustments in one sector of the border to
adjustments in other sectors. India, for its part, abandoned its
commitment not to discuss substantive issues until China withdrew
from "Indian" territory occupied in 1962 (Ganguly 1989: 1126).
Border talks have continued through the 1990s.
Since the 1980s, India and China have agreed to various indirect
strategies aimed at improving the climate for negotiations. The two
sides have pursued a process of normalization. Trade, cultural,
scientific, and political exchanges to some extent have been delinked
from the ups and downs of the border talks and other strategic
disagreements. Bilateral trade in particular has responded to
normalization, rising from $200 million in 1991 to $670 million in
1993 and to $1.02 billion in 1995. With both economies growing and
with encouragement from the two governments, these figures are
expected to increase further. A process of summitry has been initiated.
Thus the foreign ministers met in New York before the sixth round of
border talks. Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Premier Zhao Ziyang
held a brief summit, also in New York, in October 1985. The foreign
ministers conferred again after the seventh round of border talks.
Finally, Rajiv Gandhi made a state visit in December 1988, as did the
Indian president in 1992 and Prime Minister Narasimha Rao in 1993.
Premier Li Peng came to India in 1991, and President Jiang Zemin in
1996. This brings to six the number of high-level visits in the past
eleven years. In short, beginning in 1980 the two sides entered a phase
of relatively normal diplomacy. Although this process has had its
limits, it has been seen as an essential complement to negotiations
over the border conflict.
The combination of force, negotiations, and indirection can also be

 Page 172
observed with respect to India's ocean territories. Since the early
1970s New Delhi has built up its naval forces to counter not only the
great-power navies but also those of Pakistan and China. It has tried
negotiating. In the 1960s and 1970s, India labored hard in the United
Nations to develop the idea of the Indian Ocean as a zone of peace
where the activities of nonregional navies would be restricted
(Marwah 1987: 299317). It is now trying indirect measures. India has
become part of a fourteen-member group called the Indian Ocean Rim
Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC) that will focus on
economic, environmental, and technical issues. By fostering
cooperation among the major countries, IOR-ARC will, New Delhi
hopes, make the ocean more secure.

12

In essence, the same combination of approaches has been applied to

separatist struggles too. The Kashmiri militancylike the Sikh
militancy before itis being fought by the massive use of the regular
army, paramilitary forces, and local police. India is defending the
northeast using a similar combination of means. When the
government senses that the militants are fatigued, it holds out the
possibility of negotiations. Meanwhile it deploys a strategy of
indirection toward the society: the military engages in local health and
relief work; economic and other developmental activities are
increased; eventually, an amnesty releases militants captured during
counterinsurgency operations, new elections are held in the state, the
separatist organization is brought in from the cold, often to govern the
state, and a peace accord is signed wherein the government makes
concessions relating to major grievances.13
India's approach to territorial security relies on military force and
confidence-building, on the one hand, and negotiations and indirect
strategies on the other. That is, it combines coercive approaches that
seek to advance India's interests with measures that demonstrate
readiness to concede something to the other side. The mix of
approaches is not necessarily a conscious and carefully calibrated
policy of sticks and carrots. Idiosyncratic decisions, the attitudes and
actions of adversaries, and domestic politics and public opinion
influence India's stance at any given time. But at a deeper level, policy
is shaped by an equilibrating tendency in Indian political thought.
There is, as suggested earlier, an understanding that power-based,
coercive approaches by themselves cannot bring peace and stability in
the long term and must be tempered by conciliatory, noncoercive
methods and instruments. This understanding rests on both material
and ideational factors, a point we will return to later. Suffice it to say
here that Indian policy on territorial security is complex and cannot be
reduced to any single approach.

 Page 173
Foreign Policy Autonomy
At independence, Jawaharlal Nehru said in a famous remark (1983b:
241): "What does independence consist of? It consists fundamentally
and basically of foreign relations. That is the test of independence. All
else is local autonomy." India values foreign policy autonomy, and,
for the most part, New Delhi has steered its own course. This does not
mean that India has not tilted toward one great power or another at
various times. It has always maintained the right to do so in its own
interest. But, as the following episodes reveal, it has at key junctures
maintained its own line of policy:
· At independence, despite British pressures, India refused to enter
into an alliance. When the United States wanted India to join in the
containment of the Soviet Union, India declined, even though it
was clear that this position might incur U.S. wrath and that Pakistan
would profit by enlisting in the Western alliance system (Heimsath
and Mansingh 1971: 343-62). British and American sympathies for
Pakistan's case on Kashmir did not cause India to recant or to shun
relations with the two communist giants. Indeed, India established
close relations with both.
· In 1962, when China was winning the war against India, New
Delhi was vulnerable. It needed British and U.S. military aid and
even sought outright military intervention. Yet Nehru was greatly
exercised over the implications for Indian nonalignment, even
though Washington did not insist on public expressions of
solidarity with the West (Kux 1993: 204-6).
· In a last-minute attempt to join the nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty (NPT), Indira Gandhi asked for a nuclear umbrella
(Mirchandani 1968: 156-67). Here was a moment when India was
prepared to give up a measure of its foreign policy autonomy.
When it did not get a security guarantee, India refused to sign the
 NPT and reverted to a policy of nuclear autonomy that it has
maintained ever since.
· During the Johnson presidency, India-U.S. relations became
especially strained over Vietnam. When India was hit by massive
food shortages, Lyndon Johnson, annoyed by Indira Gandhi's
outspokenness, slowed U.S. grain shipments to India in his famous
"short tether" policy. Even so, India's stance on the Vietnam War
did not appreciably change (Ganguly 1993: 87).
· India also resisted Soviet pressures when necessary. In 1969, New
Delhi refused to join Moscow's anti-China "Asian Collective
Security" system. The Soviet Union was India's biggest

 Page 174
arms supplier and also a major economic partner. With Nixon in
the White House and not sympathetic to Indian concerns, India
depended also on Soviet diplomatic support. Yet India made it
quite clear that it would not join the proposed system (S. N.
Singh 1986: 46-52, 76-79).
· Ten years later, India was to display a good deal of autonomy over
Afghanistan. Although New Delhi was about to sign the largest
arms deal ever with the Soviets, India's initial reactions to the
Soviet invasion were condemnatory. They soon moderated, but
India continued to indicate that it did not approve of the Soviet
action. An American specialist on Indo-Soviet relations concludes
that it was the coincidence of interests that accounted for India's
relative softness on the Soviets, not Moscow's ability to influence
Indian choices (Horn 1982: 180-90).
During the Cold War, India's foreign policy autonomy was threatened
by the bipolar confrontation: as early as 1944, Nehru had understood
that the United States and the Soviet Union would be dominant and
competitive and there would be pressure on the rest of the world to
choose sides (Nehru 1981: 536-48). Forty-five years later, the threats
to autonomy have changed: a bipolar Cold War no longer exists, but
in India's estimation there are other powers and forces that seek to
subvert Indian independence. Thus, in September 1994, on his state
visit to Singapore, Narasimha Rao (1994: 10-11) told his audience
that "the Non-aligned Movement is fully relevant today....Its
principles have not really been diluted by the recent strategic
changeswe continue with the determination to decide our own
destiny."
Since 1991, New Delhi has seen as the major threat to its autonomy a
concert of the United States and the industrial countries, primarily
Japan and the European Union.
14 The post-Cold War order is perceived as unipolar as well as
multipolar. It is unipolar because the United States will be dominant
for some time to come in terms of military and economic power. But
the international system is also incipiently multipolar, because China,
the European Union, and Japan are emerging power centers whose
interests will diverge from those of the United States. Further, while
the United States is the premier military power, economic power is
more widely distributed, beyond even Japan and the European Union:
China, the East Asian newly industrializing countries, and the
ASEAN countries are emerging centers. Economically, therefore, the
world is multipolar.15Yet New Delhi recognizes that, these
contradictions notwithstanding, in the transition to a genuine
multipolarity the United States leads a coalition of states from East
Asia and Southeast Asia, North America, and Western Europe.

 Page 175
The second threat to foreign policy autonomy, from New Delhi's
perspective, is ''the new institutionalism," once again led by the
United States. India fears that a range of organizations and regimes,
strengthened since the end of the Cold War, will reduce its room for
diplomatic maneuver (Dixit 1994: 932-33). A revitalized United
Nations and the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF),
under U.S. leadership, could impose constraints on Indian foreign
policy options. The United Nations could resurrect its role in the
Kashmir issue. The World Bank and the IMF have already warned
India that its defense expenditures are too high, and loans could be
made conditional on the scaling down of military outlays (Gupta
1995: 5). These institutions could become more intrusive with respect
to issues such as India's relations with Pakistan and the rest of the
region. In addition to those organizations, a variety of U.S.-brokered
and U.S.-led regimes are seen as inimical to the conduct of an
independent foreign policy. The capacity to choose one's enemies and
friends and to take a stand on issues depends, in the end, on military
power. The nonproliferation regime, in particular, is seen as a curb on
Indian military power. The NPT, the Nuclear Suppliers' Group, the
Missile Technology Control Regime, and now the Comprehensive
Test Ban Treaty are seen as denying India weapons and technological
capabilities essential for its military preparedness.

16

The third threat to foreign policy autonomy, in India's calculus, is

economic globalization. India has always been suspicious of what it
regards as a global capitalist system, represented by multinational
corporations and foreign investment, that could ensnare it in a
neocolonial order. During much of the Cold War, India looked on the
activities of such companies with suspicionthey were agents not just
of capitalism as a productive system but of capitalist powers,
especially the United States. Although India has moderated its views,
suspicion of the system itself and of multinationals and foreign
investors prevails in certain sections of the bureaucracy, in older
Indian business houses, and in the leftist and rightist political
formations, including parties, trade unions, and intellectual circles.
The government increasingly wants to integrate India with the global
capitalist system, and it recognizes that foreign business is often
outside the control of foreign governments. However, especially
among elements of the political left and right, there continue to be
concerns about the pace and extent of integration with a system that
revolves about the members of the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD), and those concerns are
reinforced by doubts about the autonomy of multinational
corporations.17

 Page 176
In sum, New Delhi sees the major threat to Indian foreign policy
autonomy as being constituted by the U.S.-led concert of Western
powers. The concert can operate directly on India but also works
through various international institutions, regimes, and a globalized
economic order. These entities could punish India diplomatically (in
the United Nations, for example, on an issue like Kashmir), militarily
(by denying it key technologies), and economically by withholding
multilateral funding (from the World Bank or IMF) or impeding
private investment flows. The U.S.-led concert could also threaten
India somewhat more indirectly. One of the greatest fears of Indian
decision makers since 1947 has been that powerful outsiders will
intervene in regional affairs as a way of constraining India. That fear
has waxed and waned. Since the mid-1980s, Indian anxieties have
lessened. Washington was quietly supportive of the India-Sri Lanka
accord of 1987 and backed Indian intervention in the Maldives coup.
New Delhi recognizes, though, that the great powers could always
hurt India by supporting one or more of its neighbors against it. Given
that all the bilateral quarrels in South Asia are between India and the
smaller states, there are many potential pressure points.
In its relations with greater powers, a state can choose among several
strategies: bandwagoning, balancing, nonalignment, even "hiding."

18In the bipolar world, India chose nonalignment. In the unipolar (or
multipolar) world after 1991, India's strategy for autonomy has been
one of bandwagoning with balance. Over the long term, though, New
Delhi's ambition is what I will refer to as internal balancing.

India's conception of nonalignment was a distinct contribution to the

norms and institutions of international society. While affirming the
essentially Westphalic conventions of the "society of states"the
primacy of states and national interest, the inviolability of territory,
peace among nations, the honoring of agreements, international law,
diplomacyit added several elements.19 Nonalignment represented a
refusal to become permanently attached to any great power and a
desire to establish a zone free of great-power competition. It was an
insistence that relatively weak powers could choose to stay aloof from
great-power rivalries. This did not mean that they should always
forsake great-power support or refuse to choose sides if either national
interest or morality warranted such a choice. Nonalignment, in the
Indian conception, was therefore perfectly realist, but also idealist:
Nehru never tired of repeating that he was free to choose sides so long
as he avoided permanent attachments; he was committed, he said, to a
positive ethical stance in the sense of being obliged to commend and
condemn the actions of other states, including the great powers.
Nonalignment was also a

 Page 177
positive program that promoted international cooperation across
ideological lines and mediated between the Eastern and Western blocs
(Damodaran 1995: 190-205).
In the Cold War period, nonalignment appeared to Indian leaders as a
perfectly rational response to the pressures and pulls of the East-West
conflict. Since the end of the Cold War, the shine of nonalignment has
dulledalthough some contend that great-power pressures on weaker
states continue, that great-power rivalries are not altogether over (e.g.,
the United States versus Russia), that new rivalries are in the making
(e.g., the United States versus China), and that nonalignment as a
basic refusal to be permanently identified with any big power is
therefore still essential. Yet the insistence on standing apart from the
big powers has clearly softened. In the post-Cold War period, Indian
decision makers see the United States as the greatest power, and
bandwagoning seems to be a rational response. On a variety of issues
related to the Persian Gulf War and nuclear proliferation, New Delhi
has apparently gone along with Washington or softened its stand. It
allowed U.S. air force flights to refuel in India during the Gulf War. It
voted with the U.S.-led United Nations resolutions against Iraq, a
country with which it had had close relations over a considerable part
of the Cold War period. On nuclear matters, India joined the United
States in sponsoring two key U.N. resolutions supporting a
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and a fissile materials cutoff
(FMC), even though these measures would limit its own nuclear
capabilities. India also restrained itself during the NPT extension
process and held off criticizing the extension, when for years it had
decried the NPT.

20

For three reasons, though, the long-term trend in Indian policy is to

seek balance. First, if there is a second and third tier of states that
combine military and economic power, a coalition with them creates a
counterbalance against U.S. diktats. Second, seeking balance is an
insurance policy: when the world moves toward a genuine multipolar
structure, India will have the advantage of having cultivated three or
four alternative power centers. Third, balancing is necessary for
domestic reasons: Indian decision makers can continue to claim that
India is "nonaligned" and has not yielded to pressure.
Thus, even as India has bandwagoned with the United States, it has
intermittently projected a more independent diplomatic stand. In
August 1996, India blocked consensus on the CTBT. According to
New Delhi, the CTBT was not truly comprehensiveit did not cover
nonexplosive testingand therefore it was not in India's interest to join.
The deeper reason has been a desire to "stand up" to the United States,
which was seen as leading the CTBT charge (Mohan 1996). India's
attitude toward

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the FMC is likely to be just as negative. In short, although India has
recently been less stringent about autonomy, it continues to resist
being identified too closely with any great power.
India has also sought balance through a number of informal coalitions.
At various times, it has signaled an interest in a triangular Iran-China-
India relationship.

21 Commentators have perceived other triangles: Russia-China-India;

Australia-South Africa-India in the Indian Ocean rim; Israel-Southeast
Asia-India; even an Asian triad of China, Japan, and India.22In
addition, India is exploring membership in regional organizations. It is
trying to energize the South Asian Association for Regional
Cooperation (SAARC) by pushing for the SAARC Preferential Tariff
Arrangement (SAPTA), with a free trade area and full-fledged
economic community to follow. It has become a member of the
ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), would like to be part of Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation (APEC), and has been central in constructing
an Indian Ocean Rim grouping. With Brazil and a group of other
developing countries, it launched the "G-15." It remains part of the
Nonaligned Movement and continues to propound that movement's
importance.

Bandwagoning with balance is for India an interim strategy. In the

end, India would prefer "internal balancing": it would like to be
militarily strong enough to shed such entanglements. It continues,
therefore, not only to import major weapons systems but also to build
its basic military design and production capacities. Much effort has
gone into the nuclear and missile programs. No one knows what
India's nuclear capabilities are, but estimates place it at roughly 60
bombs at short notice (Perkovich 1993). India is close to intermediate-
range ballistic missile capability with its "Agni" systems, and ICBM
capability is not inconceivable. The real constraints in the nuclear
arena are financial and therefore also diplomatic. India is under
pressure from the United States and others to halt its missile program.
Financial commitments through the IMF and the World Bank may be
at risk, and unilateral sanctions are also a threat. Key technologies,
some of them relevant to the nuclear and missile programs, are being
denied until India stops the programs. Nevertheless, all indications
suggest that India will continue to pursue a strong indigenous military
capability.23Indeed, in the wake of the CTBT negotiations in Geneva
in 1996, the debate over going nuclear has sharpened.
In addition to India's general desire for balance is a regional policy
that seeks to exclude the great powers from South Asian affairs. In
this regard Indian policy displays a good deal of consistency. Indian
decision makers are aware that the smaller states in South Asia
perceive three

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basic threats to their securitythreats posed by extraregional powers
including the great powers; internal subversion; and India itselfany of
which may cause them to turn to outside powers for assistance. India
has in turn fashioned three basic responses by which it tries to reduce
the insecurity of the small states and their incentive to woo
nonregional powers. The first response is to forge bilateral defense
agreements with the smaller states. These agreements give India a role
in those states' external security and obviate the need for nonregional
protectors: thus India has treaty arrangements with Bhutan,
Bangladesh, and Nepal.

24The second response is to insist that, in the event of internal

instabilities that require external military help and other forms of
assistance, India should be consulted and used as a first resort:
commentators in South Asia have called this "the India
Doctrine."25The third response has been to forge regional
organizations that will reassure the smaller states with respect to
Indian motives and actions: SAARC is the most recent example, but
India's attempts to bring South Asians into a regional arrangement
date back to the Asian Relations Conference held in Delhi in March
1947.26

India's strategy for foreign policy autonomy is a mix of two broad

approaches. While it accepts a certain degree of bandwagoning with
the United States in the short term, its search for strategic balance, its
long-term concern with internal balancing through indigenous arms
production, and its regional policy of defense agreements and Indian-
led collective security ("the India Doctrine")all these reveal that New
Delhi seeks to marshal power and force against threats to India's
autonomy. At the same time, India seeks to protect its autonomy
through more institutional and noncoercive practices. Nonalignment
and regional cooperation in South Asia represent this alternative track.
National Power
If India is to defend its territory and become a truly autonomous actor
in the international system, it must be powerful. Indian leaders have
had different notions of national power. For Nehru (1947-64), power
included military capacity. India's first prime minister, it should be
remembered, laid the basis for India's defense industry and its nuclear
program. But power was also economic strength, technological
capacity, and social and political stability. In addition, power lay not
so much in coercive as in mediatory diplomacy and had
"cosmopolitan" ends.27 Such diplomacy would serve Indian interests
but also the interests of international society as a whole. India would
be powerful to the extent that it had the ability to persuade and
reassure others rather than coerce them (Rana 1976).

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With Indira Gandhi (1966-77, 1980-84), India's view of power came
closer to the realpolitik notion of military and other coercive
instrumentalities (Mansingh 1984: 1-2, 32-40). Moreover, whereas
Nehru saw Indian security in a global environment, Mrs. Gandhi
focused on the region, the near region, and domestic politics, a policy
focus that was even more central to the security conception of the
successor Janata government (1977-79). In Mrs. Gandhi's second term
there was a shift from machtpolitik focused on the region and on
domestic politics to an enlarged view of power. This enlarged view
encompassed greater attention to the nonmilitary components of
power and a realization that Indian power had more cosmopolitan
responsibilities. Thus, for instance, Mrs. Gandhi led the way in
reestablishing an economic and technological partnership with the
United States (Kux 1993: 386-99). She also began the economic
reform process, which would be enlarged by Rajiv Gandhi and then
Narasimha Rao. In this period, India returned to global disarmament
issues. It was a key member of the four "Six Nation-Five Continent
Peace Initiatives" involving Argentina, Mexico, Greece, Sweden,
Tanzania, and India. The first initiative was a joint public statement
urging nuclear disarmament, reform of the United Nations, and the
transfer of resources from arms to development. It was issued on May
22, 1984, just months before Mrs. Gandhi's death.

28

With Rajiv Gandhi (1984-89) and Narasimha Rao (1991-96), Indian

conceptions of power continued to change in the direction Mrs.
Gandhi had begun to chart in her second term. Rajiv deepened the
economic reforms and adhered to the more cosmopolitan vision of
power. Economic liberalization represented a major policy shift under
Rajiv, and India-U.S. links in economics, technology, and defense
were strengthened. India's continuing involvement in the Six Nation-
Five Continent initiatives (in 1985, 1986, and 1988) and the Rajiv
Gandhi Action Plan for disarmament (presented at the United Nations
in June 1988) were part of the larger ambition for Indian power. Rajiv,
like his mother, brandished Indian power in the region. Indian forces
went to Sri Lanka in 1987 to help the government solve the Tamil
separatist problem.29 In 1988, Indian forces stopped a coup in the
Maldives. They also carried out two massive military exercisesone
near the Pakistani border (1987) and the other near the Chinese border
(1988)at least in part to signal India's military strength and
confidence.30Finally, recognizing that domestic order must be
achieved if India was to become a great power, Rajiv energetically set
about forging various internal peace agreements with separatists, as in
the Punjab and Assam.
Narasimha Rao, after the Cold War, maintained the Rajiv Gandhi
program in substantial measure but, even more than his predecessor,
cast

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Indian power in economic terms. At least in part as a result, India's
strategic gaze swung away from South Asia. It focused instead on the
United States and, in what was called the "Look East policy," on East
Asia and Southeast Asia.
This review of Indian visions of power suggests that national power,
whether it is cosmopolitan or more inward-looking, rests on three
components: military strength, economic development, and internal
order. These in turn become secondary values of a security
conception. As we shall see, these secondary values are also
vulnerable to external and internal threats or limitations. India's
strategies for managing its vulnerabilities have been partially
successful. New Delhi has built up conventional and nuclear weapons
capabilities to an impressive level. Given its size and highly diverse
society, it has maintained a fair degree of internal order. Its greatest
failure has been in the realm of economic development. India's
promarket reforms since 1991, though, may bring about a turnaround.
Military Strength
Military strength is a key component of India's conception of power.
Indian decision makers want enough military capacity for
deterrenceand for defense should deterrence break downagainst both
Pakistan and China. Some have suggested that India also needs a
general deterrent in the Indian Ocean against great-power navies. This
requirement, they argue, has grown since the U.S.-led war against
Iraq.

31In addition, there are situations that require compulsion, mostly in

the region or near-region. Indian leaders want enough extra force to be
able to project power in the neighborhood, whether as a
"peacekeeping force" in Sri Lanka or as an interventionary force on an
Indian Ocean island or even in the Persian Gulf, where India gets
most of its oil.

India's ability to deter and defend against Chinese and Pakistani

attacks rests on its conventional and nuclear preparedness. India's
armed forces, numbering 1.265 million (down from a peak of about
1.5 million) and 200,000 reservists, are the fourth largest in the world
(J. Singh 1992: 72-73). The major increase in forces came after 1962,
when India had about half a million men under arms (Kavic 1967:
97). The defense budget has grown from an average of 2 percent of
gross domestic product in the 1950s, to 3.4 percent in the 1960s, to
3.6 percent in the 1970s and 1980s. The 1990s show a downward
trend, with the budget closer to 3 percent of GDP (J. Singh 1992: 54-
55).
Indian conventional forcesheavily reliant on external sourcing for high
technology and combat systemsare vulnerable to foreign suppliers.
The arms relationship with the Soviet Union brought stability to

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Indian sourcing during much of the Cold War. Since 1991 and the
collapse of the Soviet economy, supplies have been erratic. Although
the situation has improved, there remain serious concerns over the
preparedness of the Indian forces. India has bought systems from
other suppliers, but their terms and reliability are suspect. New Delhi
is keen to buy from the United States. U.S. suspicions of the Soviet-
supplied Indian forces linger, however, and Indian decision makers
fear that Washington might cut off supplies at a critical moment or use
an arms relationship as political leverage.
Internally, a host of problems exist. The most serious relate to the
ability of India's defense industry to produce combat systems and
subsystems that meet the armed forces' changing requirements in a
technologically sophisticated and fast-changing world, to do so in
timely fashion, to maintain quality control, and to remain within cost
specifications. The progress of the Main Battle Tank (MBT), Light
Combat Aircraft (LCA), and Advanced Jet Trainer (AJT) projects has
not been encouraging. The missile program has performed well, but
the MBT, LCA, AJT, and other programs have disappointed. Indian
decision makers have not been able to fathom why some sectors excel
and others do not, apart from idiosyncratic reasons such as the quality
of administrative leadership.

32

There are also budgetary constraints to defense production. Since

1987-88, the defense budget has declined or stagnated in real terms
(Joshi 1992: 83). This decline has cramped the missile program and
postponed the acquisition of key items including deep-penetration
strike aircraft, a light combat aircraft, an advanced jet trainer,
corvettes, frigates, destroyers, submarines, and carriers.33The
situation has been made worse by the Hank Brown Amendment in the
U.S. Congress, which has allowed Pakistan to purchase U.S.
equipment in recompense for the F-16s it was refused.
India's nuclear deterrent, too, is vulnerable to pressures from external
powers. Whereas the basic nuclear technologies have been mastered
indigenously, there are concerns about a fully operational deterrent.
India has continued to refine the design of its nuclear device but
would need to test further to establish confidence in its reliability. If it
is to miniaturize the device, that too will require a testing program.
But testing could bring economic and other sanctions, from the
Western powers in particular, especially after passage of a CTBT.
World public opinion, if not official opinion, turned against France in
1995, and India may confront a similar situation. Indian experts
estimate that sanctions will indeed slow the country's progress on its
nuclear program, including the crucial missile subprogram, although
they will not stop it.34

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The nuclear program has its internal problems as well. Two are
critical. First of all, a series of safety and maintenance lapses have
come to light. The former head of the Atomic Energy Regulatory
Board (AERB), Dr. A. Gopalakrishnan, has recently gone public with
these lapses. They present a worrying picture: problems at Tarapur,
Kaiga, Narora, Kalpakkam, and the Rajasthan Atomic Power Station
(RAPS) reactors over the past five years or so have tarnished the
nuclear estate's image (Prasad 1995). Second, the Narasimha Rao
government curtailed funding to the nuclear program. Whether this
was an act of economic austerity or a response to the program's
growing troubles is unclear.

35The point is that the Indian nuclear program is in the financial

doldrums. Although funding may be restored, the operational
problems of the reactors and massive cost overruns have seriously
harmed the program. Not surprisingly, India is signaling an interest in
nuclear cooperationwith Canada, Russia, and the United States. It is
also keen to sell nuclear technology (e.g., to Iran). The problem is that
buying and selling nuclear technology make India vulnerable once
again to external pressures.

A host of external and internal problems thus curtail India's capacity

to maintain its military strength.
Since independence, India has been aware of its vulnerability to
external suppliers of military equipment. The Blackett Report of 1948
recommended that India deal with the problem by embarking on a
process of indigenization. Thus India has invested in a large defense
production base that is intended to make the country self-sufficient. It
presently has 39 ordnance factories (OFs) and 8 defense public-sector
undertakings (DPSUs). These installations produce ammunition, battle
tanks, armored vehicles, aircraft, warships, missiles, electronic and
communications equipment, engines, alloys, and specialized
components and spares. Indian investment in the OFs and DPSUs in
1994 was $920 million (Basu 1996: 14).
The Indian defense industry, though, has failed to indigenize the
production of key combat systems and subsystems, including such key
items as aircraft, armor and artillery, carriers and submarines, engines,
and electronics. To correct for this deficiency, Indian strategy has
been to increase research and development allocations, to enter into
licensing and coproduction relationships, and to increase
privatization.36Increasing R and D funding has not worked, however,
except in missile technology and some electronics and alloys. The
Main Battle Tank is being delivered to the army, but controversy
surrounds its quality. Licensed production (such as that of MiG-21s)
has been successful to a considerable extent. India has avoided
coproduction because it would

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again reduce national control over a military project. Thus the LCA
project has a coproduction component but, not surprisingly, has been
stalled. Most recently, New Delhi has tried to infuse some dynamism
into defense production by privatizing. The idea seems to be to reduce
the burden on the public sector so that it can focus on key items and to
improve efficiency through private involvement. Traditionally the
private sector has been restricted to producing "nonlethal" items. This
restriction will continue; but under a new policy, private business will
enlarge its role in defense production. The Department of Defense
Production, in a recent move, set up ten technical committees to
determine the scope of "indigenization" of defense production. The
committees envisage that in terms of the total value of items, 67
percent will come from the private sector (Basu 1996: 56).
Since the nuclear test of 1974, New Delhi has intermittently made
statements encouraging the view that it has a nuclear weapons
capability that could be operationalized at very short notice. Although
the government denies having a nuclear arsenal, it has made clear that
India could put together a deliverable weapon quickly. These Indian
statements have usually been made in the context of a nuclear crisis
with Pakistan. India's covert nuclear posture has been called
"ambiguity," "nonweaponized deterrence," "recessed deterrence," and
"opaque."

37The posture's premise is that nuclear deterrence rests not necessarily

on the certainty of retaliation but even on the mere possibility of it.
Given the destructive potential of nuclear weapons, anyone
contemplating military action against India will have to reckon that
New Delhi can retaliate massively with just a few strikes. Indian
decision makers hope that in the calculus of aggressors this will rule
out the use of force: no rational political goals would be served by the
nuclear destruction of key towns and cities.
India's posture has skeptics both at home and abroad. While the logic
of deterrence by ambiguity is persuasive, there are questions about its
stability. One doubt is that in a crisis ambiguity may not be sufficient:
that is, the posture may be "deterrence stable" but not "crisis stable."
Thus, over time, Indian decision makers will be forced to seek a more
transparent, classical posture. Part of this argument is sociological.
Indian decision makers at the highest levelpoliticians, officials,
generalsmay simply not accept ambiguity as a strategic doctrine.
Social organizations such as the state and its agencies are invented to
reduce the role of uncertainty in collective life. To rely on uncertainty
in an area of public policy vital to national survival surely goes
against their raison d'être.
While Indian politicians and officials have been reticent about
expressing themselves on this subject in public, senior members of the
armed forces have been outspoken in various semipublic settings. At

 Page 185
various seminars in New Delhi, they have repeated that although they
must obey the decisions of civil authorities, deterrence by uncertainty
is not a strategic posture they like. A testing program; clear doctrinal
guidelines on deployment, targeting, and use; a survivable command
and control systemall the classic components of nuclear deterrence are
essential if India is to have a credible posture. This attitude does not
reflect a lack of understanding of the logic of deterrence, as some
Indian critics of the armed forces aver; rather it reflects the
organizational culture of the armed forces. The armed forces do not
necessarily want ''a baroque arsenal"a large deterrent with all the
refinements prized by the nuclear powers. A minimal deterrent would
suffice. Nor do they necessarily dream of "war fighting" and elaborate
doctrines. But they do want a bomb that they can see, smell, touch,
taste, and hear.
Despite some skepticism, India's commitment to a "neither-confirm-
nor-deny" posture has been maintained. In the prelude to India's
decision to reject the CTBT and then block the consensus, a segment
of the strategic community called for a program of testing and
weaponization. A vigorous debate on India's nuclear option ensued, of
the kind not seen since 1964-66. Yet India's nuclear middle road
prevailed.
Why successive governments have stuck to the middle ground
remains unclear. A number of considerations are likely at work. First,
nuclear weapons could adversely affect the balance of civil and
military power.

38Second, rivalry within the forcesbetween the army, air force, and
navyover who will control nuclear weapons may be a factor (K. P.
Bajpai 1996: 25). That the weapons might be entrusted to an entirely
new force is a disquieting possibility for the three services, but one
they must countenance if they urge nuclearization. Third, and more
important, the geopolitical wisdom of going nuclear remains in doubt.
An India armed with nuclear weapons might very well become a
nuclear target. India must worry about the chances of a preemptive
strike and the long-term danger of having a place on the permanent
targeting plans of the nuclear powers (K. P. Bajpai 1996: 42). Fourth,
the economic costs of weaponization are a cause for restraint. Though
India may have already borne most of the costs of R and D and
infrastructure building, the ongoing costs could be daunting. Critics
disagree, citing apparently modest figures for a minimal deterrent. But
there is the fear that an arms race mentality will prevail, that a
maximalist posture will result, and that the real costs, including those
of testing, command and control, environmental safety, and health,
will be much greater than current projections.39Fifth, there is a moral
barrier to weaponizing. Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru expressed
revulsion at the bomb. India has for fifty years

 Page 186
argued that possession and use of nuclear weapons is abhorrent and
that deterrence is ethically dubious. Most recently, India argued in the
International Court of Justice that nuclear weapons are illegal.
Although it may be easy to dismiss Indian statements as hypocritical
or tactical, there is moral doubt, at least over going nuclear outright.

40 Sixth, public opinion, to the extent that it has truly been gauged on
a national scale, seems to support the middle road (Cortright and
Mattoo 1996: 11).

In sum, India has devoted considerable resources to building up the

country as a military power, primarily against China and Pakistan.
Self-sufficiency in conventional and nuclear forces is the country's
ambition, and it has gone a long way toward achieving that goal.
Deficiencies still exist, however, particularly in the major
conventional weapons systems. Those deficits, due to both external
and internal circumstances, will continue to constrain India's military
power in the years to come.
Economic Development
Ever since independence, India has held to the vision that economic
development is a key security value. An economically backward India
would be prey to external and internal foes. Economic weakness
would hurt India's defense, keep it technologically backward, and
promote internal instability. The country's enemies, both external and
internal, would find fertile soil for subversion.
This logic was exemplified in a speech Nehru gave in 1948 in which
he warned: "If we do not ultimately solve the basic problems of our
countrythe problems of food, clothing, housing, and so on,...we shall
be swept away" (Nehru 1983b: 140-41). Economic productivity was a
vital national objective. It was necessary for the achievement of other
national goals: "The ultimate peril is the slow drying-up of the
capacity of the nation to produce. That affects us politically,
economically and in every other way, and gradually our strength goes
down to resist these very perils that face us" (Nehru 1983b: 95). Four
decades later, the logic of economy and national strength was echoed
in Defense Minister Pant's argument that ''you need political stability
in order to have well planned economic growth. You need economic
growth and proper distribution of the fruits of economic growth in
order to have social stability which is the bedrock of political stability.
You need both in order to have the right environment in a democracy
for defense preparedness in depth, and defense preparedness
obviously is a priority area for both the other areas" (Pant 1988: 4).
From Nehru's time to the last years of Mrs. Gandhi's second term in
office, development meant a steady but not necessarily high rate of
economic growth, equitably distributed, and a self-sufficient
economy.

 Page 187
Self-sufficiency was perhaps considered even more important than
"growth with equity." Thus Indian socialism stressed the construction
of basic infrastructureheavy industry, power, transportation, roads,
communicationsand, particularly after Nehru, the capacity to feed the
country's own population. In general, it looked upon consumer
satisfaction and choice as a luxury; indeed, consumerism was seen as
derogating from investment in infrastructure and agriculture.
From Rajiv Gandhi's period onward, development has been inflected
differently. It has come to be equated, as never before, with high rates
of growth (6 or 7 percent annually). "The fundamental objective of
economic reform," the Narasimha Rao government wrote, "is to bring
about rapid and sustained improvement in the quality of life....Central
to this goal is the rapid growth in incomes and productive
employment" (Ministry of Finance n.d.: 1). While there remains a
commitment to a "middle way'' of growth with equity, that goal is
more rhetorical than real. Self-sufficiency continues to animate Indian
development ambitions, but the need to "catch up" has substantially
moderated the earlier orthodoxy. Thus in the Ministry of Finance's
discussion paper on the post-1991 economic reforms, a key paragraph
relates to the comparative advance of East and Southeast Asia, and to
India's stagnation: "Within a generation, the countries of East Asia
have transformed themselves. China, Indonesia, Korea, Thailand and
Malaysia today have living standards much above ours....What they
have achieved we must strive for" (Ministry of Finance n.d.: 2).
Now that economic development has come to be equated with high
rates of economic growth, a number of constraints stand in its way.
Disagreement within India is perhaps sharpest on the issue of those
constraints. For the Narasimha Rao government they were primarily
internal, whereas for domestic critics they are mostly external. The
defeat of Narasimha Rao in 1996 wrought some changes but not
substantial ones. The leftist coalition in power under Prime Minister
Deve Gowda and I. K. Gujral is more attentive to equity goals but is
still committed to the same general policy.
For the Narasimha Rao government and its successors, the biggest
constraint facing the growth agenda stems from "old habits of
thinking and working" within India. The most important of these
habits is the expectation that the state rather than the market must play
the leading role in structuring production, consumption, investment,
and trade. That expectation is widespread in Indian society, but in
addition, "powerful sectional interests" sustain such expectations and
oppose reform (Ministry of Finance n.d.: 1). Thus a second constraint
is the role of various special interests. A third constraint on the growth
agenda is

 Page 188
the negative view Indians take of foreign involvement in the Indian
economy. The older business housesparticularly the so-called Bombay
Groupand sections of the intelligentsia, political classes, and the
general public resent the presence of "the multinationals."
In the face of these limitations, India's strategy for "development as
growth" has two components. First, the state must lead a "revolution
from above" to overcome the old habits of thinking and working and
the resistance of special interestsa revolution Narasimha Rao called "a
certain Market Plus."

41The state must foster an "economic environment" that ''combines

the discipline of competitive markets with efficient provision of key
public services such as primary education, primary health care,
transport and communication and, of course, law and order." This
effort will require reforms not just of "broad policy" but also "of laws,
rules and procedure." (See Ministry of Finance n.d.: 1-2.)

The second component of the new developmentalism consists of

reassuring external investors that India wants and can handle foreign
investment. The government has therefore launched a massive
publicity campaign stressing the size of the market (a middle class of
150 million whose buying power equals that of France), the nature
and irreversibility of the reforms, the vitality of the Indian legal
system, a long-standing stock market, English as the language of
business and administration, and the stability of Indian politics (Gupta
1995: 65). While India has been slow to allow investments in some
sectors (for example, consumer products), it has offered special
concessions in others (particularly in infrastructure).
Overall, India's strategy is one of state-led internal reforms in the
pursuit of rapid economic growth. The state, according to Ikenberry,
Lake, and Mastanduno (1988: 10), may be viewed in two ways: as an
organizational structurelaws and institutional arrangements shaped by
previous eventsand as an actor. In the latter conception, they suggest,
the "primary emphasis is on the goal-oriented behavior of politicians
and civil servants as they respond to internal and external constraints."
The actions of central decision makers are "distinct from the parochial
concerns of either societal groups or particular governmental
institutions, and are tied to conceptions of the 'national interest' or the
maximization of some social welfare function" (p. 10).
Our analysis of Indian economic strategy reveals an étatiste
conception in the sense of a relatively autonomous state pursuing the
"national interest." The Indian state appears as an activist and
interventionary mechanism, as in the past, but one committed now to
securing high rates of growth by bringing about a change in values,
overcoming the resistance of special interests, providing public goods
and a promarket

 Page 189
regime of norms and rules, and attracting foreign investors in the
name of "national development."
Internal Order
India's decision makers understand that however strong India may be
in terms of military and economic capabilities, the country is
vulnerable as long as it is internally unstable. Given the heterogeneity
of Indian society and the economic backwardness of various groups,
Indian governments have always expected to deal with challenges to
internal order. Their concerns about order have grown since the
relatively calm years of the Nehru period. A series of threats exist,
mostly homegrown but aided and abetted by external actors,
particularly Pakistan and China.
In Nehru's time, internal disruption was limited. The early years saw
the "police actions" in Hyderabad and Junagadh, the Kashmiri
problems, the liberation of Goa from the Portuguese (1961), trouble in
Punjab (1954), the threat of communism, and of course religious
violence at the time of partition and after. Since Nehru's time, the tide
of internal troubles has risen steadily, bringing the northeastern
rebellions from the 1960s to the present, the language riots in Tamil
Nadu in the 1960s, increasing Hindu-Muslim violence in the 1970s
and 1980s, the Sikh militancy of the 1980s, and the Kashmir
insurrection of the 1990s.
Not surprisingly, the government's concern about internal order has
heightened. For the first time since independence, in the Narasimha
Rao government India had a Minister of State for Internal Security.
The National Security Council (NSC), created in 1990, was chartered
to deal with both external and internal security matters. On his visits
to the United States and Russia in 1994, Narasimha Rao repeatedly
drew attention to a shared commitment to social pluralism, in the
interest of international stability but also of internal order. He
frequently argued that economic reforms, though necessary and
desirable, must be crafted with an eye to domestic stability.

42The Ministry of Defense's annual report for 1994-95 concludes its

opening paragraph with the judgment that "it is not so much inter-state
wars as intra-state violence, international terrorism and proxy wars by
external powers that characterize the global security environment."
The report makes several other references to internal troubles
(Ministry of Defense 1995: 1).

The growth of paramilitary forces is another indication of the

increasing inwardness of security concerns. The paramilitaries grew
sixfold in the late 1960s and early 1970s (Misra 1980: 376-77). In
roughly the same period, the Indian military grew threefold (Kavic
1967: 97; J. Singh 1992: 72-73). The paramilitaries increased their
numbers by 50 percent between 1985 and 1993 (Ministry of Home
Affairs 1994: 39).

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In that period, the military actually declined somewhat in size (J.
Singh 1992: 72-73). Expenditure on the Border Security Force (BSF)
and the Central Reserve Police (CRP) increased more than threefold
between 1968-69 and 1976-77 (Misra 1980: 376-77). Between 1985-
86 and 1992-93, expenditure on the major paramilitaries increased by
a factor of 3.5 (Ministry of Home Affairs 1994: 40). The central
government's expenditure on what is termed "police" increased by a
factor of 37 between 1951 and 1984-85 (Rajgopal 1988: 20).
The threats to internal order arise from four sources: separatism,
illegal migration, religious conflict, and caste tensions. Although the
roots are domestic, Indian decision makers see external involvement,
or opportunities for external involvement, in virtually every case.
Separatism and migration are seen as long-term threats to territory,
but in an everyday sense they are threats to internal order. Separatism
involves large-scale, organized violence between the rebelling ethnic
group and the state as well as other ethnic groups. The unrest is
abetted, as noted earlier, by external actors. Violence of a secondary
nature occurs outside the main theaters. Terrorist groups from Punjab
and Kashmir have operated in other parts of the country, including
Delhi.
Illegal migration, though less immediately and less visibly disruptive,
also upsets internal order. The migrants affect local ethnic and
religious balances in areas that have a precarious social structure.
Indian decision makers see Bangladeshi migrants as the most
dangerous influx. There is a widespread perception that they are
filtering into West Bengal and the northeastern states in large numbers
and moving on to the big Indian cities in the north. As Bengalis, they
exacerbate anti-Bengali feeling in Assam. As Muslims, they worsen
communal relations in West Bengal, the northeast, and the major
urban centers. Even though the impetus to migrate is a personal one
and generally stems from broad socioeconomic conditions,
Bangladesh is regarded as either actively encouraging the movement
of people or not doing enough to stop it.
With respect to religious conflict, the government remains worried
about Hindu-Muslim violence above all. The rise of "Muslim
fundamentalism" and the growth of an unabashed "political
Hinduism" are both the causes and effects of a heightened religious
consciousness.

43The government is particularly concerned about Muslim

communalism, which it sees as part of an upsurge of Islamic feeling
globally and which it believes is fueled by Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi
Arabia. The wave of bombings in Mumbai in 1993 following the
destruction of the Babri Masjid mosque was attributed to Pakistani
instigation of local Muslim gangs and provocateurs. Although Hindu
fundamentalism has its own external component-Indians studying and
settled abroad, for ex-

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amplethe government has not shown any great anxiety over the
majority community's foreign links.
Hindu-Muslim religious differences are paralleled by caste tensions in
northern India: caste Hindus versus the scheduled castes and tribes;
"other backward classes" (OBCs) versus the upper and middle castes;
OBCs versus the lower castes. Though caste rivalries are not new,
what is new is the large-scale political mobilization according to caste
in the huge northern states. The most dangerous aspect of this
mobilization is the formation of private militias. Rivalry between the
militias has led to an "undeclared war," particularly in the state of
Bihar but also in eastern Uttar Pradesh (Narayanan 1994: 37-38).
These developments point to the most worrying aspect of religious
and caste tensions, namely, their militarization. Underlying the growth
of violence is the proliferation of small arms. Estimates vary on the
numbers of small arms available and on the sourcesAfghanistan,
Burma, Pakistan, Southeast Asiabut Indian analysts see their
prevalence as a serious threat. Operationally, the critical problem is
the nexus between small arms smugglers, drug trafficking mafias, and
ethnic dissidents, a nexus that is transnational in scope.
The threats to internal order, then, are both internal and external.
Except in the case of separatism, the Indian government does not
regard these threats as involving the large-scale use of organized
violence directed against state authority. Religious and caste violence
can be extensive and claim a high toll. These traumas too are planned
rather than spontaneous. But the groups organized to produce violence
are evanescent: they tend to disappear after bouts of violence. They
are not in any case very large groups. Although the number of senas
(militias, private armies) is growing, these groups are not trained and
skilled perpetrators of violence. And they are not, in the end, primarily
dedicated to fighting the state but rather are members of other
religious or caste communities. The greatest dangers on this front, in
New Delhi's estimation, are the spread of small arms and the increase
in drug trafficking and mafia activity, which in the long run could
thoroughly militarize Indian society and undermine state authority.
India's approach to these various internal threats has been twofold. It
has used force or the threat of force against militant groups and their
external supporters. But it has also conceded rights to minority groups
and decentralized power to create an increasingly layered federal
structure.
New Delhi has responded with force to internal violence over nearly
fifty years. It has used the army extensively. Indeed, the incidence of
"aid to civil" has risen steeply over the last two decades. In response
to criti-

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cism from the public and from the army itself, New Delhi has built up
an array of paramilitary and police forces to deal with internal
violence.

44 India has also threatened force against external provocateurs.

Whereas the Chinese abandoned their support of the northeastern
separatists in the late 1970s, Pakistani support has been active since
the early 1980s, first in Punjab, then in Kashmir, and now, reportedly,
as far away as the northeast. Indian leaders have publicly warned
Pakistan of the possibility of a punitive war. These warnings have
been seen as intemperate outbursts, but they must also be regarded as
exercises in coercive diplomacy. On at least two occasionsin 1987 and
1990Indian mobilizations led to crises.45Pakistan is not the only
country that has been the object of Indian warnings. Bangladesh has
also been suspected of interfering, mostly in the northeast. Police and
military clashes along the border have resulted.

The general response to the demands of minority groups, though, has

been to concede various types of group rights, including linguistically
organized states, religious and vernacular schools, separate civil
codes, and caste and tribal reservations in education, government
employment, and political representation. These measures have been
aimed mostly at linguistic, religious, and caste and tribal groups.
For ethnic separatists, the favored solution has been decentralization
of power. From Nehru's time, while the central government has
remained enormously powerful, it has also created exceptions to the
general division of responsibilities between the central government
and the states. The most prominent exception, of course, is Kashmir,
which is governed by Article 370 of the constitution. Kashmir is by no
means the only exception. Responsibility has also been increasingly
layered, though it remains to be seen how effectively. Thus, in
addition to the division of authority between the center and the states
or union territories, there are regional councils (consisting of groups
of states), autonomous district councils, and panchayats (elected
councils at the local, usually village, level). In short, group rights plus
a multilayered federalism make up the Indian formula for internal
order.
Conceding group rights and instituting multilayered federalism has
not diminished central government control. Even as special rights and
provisions are conceded, central authorities remain supreme. The
authorities maintain a skewed distribution of power, for the means of
violence are substantially under their control as is also the power of
the purse. Any group that attempts to accumulate the means of
violence or to extract resources from the populace (through "taxes,"
for example), such as insurgents or various communitarian groups,
becomes for the authorities "antinational." Such organizations are
eliminated by force or

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brought into the political process after a campaign of military attrition
has rendered them amenable to "normal" politics. Although this
approach has had success in managing internal order, there are
challenges ahead for which India has not yet evolved a coherent
approach. The militarization, even criminalization, of caste and
religious confrontations is the most serious of these.
Explaining Security
The Indian conception of security appears at first glance to bear out
the classical conception of national security. In the classical
formulation, the state is bound to protect two primary values that are
intrinsic to the enjoyment of sovereigntyterritorial integrity and
foreign policy autonomyand to cultivate if not maximize power in
order to protect those values. Our review of India's security has shown
that the Indian state is clearly the referent of security; that security
strategies seek to protect three primary valuesterritorial integrity,
foreign policy autonomy, and national power; that national power in
turn is a function of three secondary valuesmilitary strength, economic
development, and internal order; and that national power is vital to the
protection of India's territorial integrity and foreign policy autonomy.
On further reflection, the Indian conception of security appears more
complex. India's strategies for coping with threats and vulnerabilities
appear diverse and numerous. New Delhi perceives a structure of
external and internal threats and, more often than not, of external
actors working with internal actors to harm India. Externally, the
major threats to India are China, Pakistan, and, subsidiarily but not
insubstantially, a U.S.-led concert of mostly Western industrial
countries. China and Pakistan constitute military threats; the U.S.-led
concert is a diplomatic and political threat. Internally, the major
threats are ethnic separatists whose rebellions furnish opportunities for
outside meddling, principally from China and Pakistan but also
potentially from the West. Religious and caste rivalries are also a
destabilizing factor, especially with the spread of small arms. With
respect to military strength and economic growth, internal institutions
and attitudes present vulnerabilities.
India's policies with respect to the threats to and vulnerabilities of its
core values are multifarious. New Delhi has resorted to force to
defend core values. It has done so to protect its borders and territory
from external and internal threats. It has also built up an indigenous
capacity to produce arms, both conventional and nuclear. In addition,
it has imported major weapons systems. These give it the ability to
defend its borders and territory, but they also give it a reputation for
power,

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which is vital for foreign policy autonomy and for its self-conception
as a major power.
However, in addition to force, New Delhi has used a variety of
institutional mechanisms and noncoercive measures to protect core
values. These include negotiations (e.g., with China and Pakistan and
with ethnic separatists), nonalignment (with respect to the great
powers), and group rights and decentralization (to deal with internal
ethnic, religious, and caste disaffection). New Delhi has also turned to
strategies that it hopes will improve the diplomatic environment with
rivals and lead to a reconceptualization of its adversaries' interests.
These strategies include diplomatic normalization (with China and
Pakistan), summitry (primarily with China but also with Pakistan
whenever possible), and economic and cultural cooperation
(bilaterally with China and Pakistan, multilaterally within SAARC).
India hopes that its economic opening to the West, especially the
United States, will ease American pressures on it in issue areas such
as nonproliferation and human rights. Internally, India's concern with
economic development rests in part on a view that material well-being
will buy off dissent.
India's mix of strategiespower and coercion but also institutional and
noncoercive measuresbelies the picture of a classical conception of
national security. Indian decision makers do see their country as a
major if not a great power. They seek power in terms of military
strength, economic development, and internal order as a way of
protecting national sovereignty. But, in contrast to the classical
conception of security, they do not appear relentlessly preoccupied
with power and its deployment. Indeed, they repeatedly turn to other
resources and methods.
India stands revealed, therefore, as a modified structuralist state in
security matters, to use Stephen Krasner's term. National interests as
articulated by the state, national power, and the ability to coerce are
very much a part of India's security conception, but so, broadly, are
institutional and noncoercive measures that aim to accommodate or
change through peaceful means the views of enemies and rivals, both
external and internal.
Two interpretations of India's modified structuralism can be advanced.
In the first interpretation, modified structuralism arises from
expediency. Given the magnitude of the external threats facing India
and its internal vulnerabilitiesin the areas of military strength,
economic development, and internal orderthe country must combine
coercive with accommodative strategies as a way of compensating for
its weaknesses. As India's power grows, it will rely less on strategies
of accommodation and peaceful change; until then, a modified
structuralist approach is apt.

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In the second interpretation, modified structuralism is a function of
conviction. Power is India's ambition; but Indian decision makers
understand that power-seeking provokes power-seeking, force begets
force. Beyond a certain point, then, power approaches are self-
defeating: they may provoke the very outcome that one seeks to avoid,
namely, large-scale violence. In addition, large-scale violence, even if
it is visited on an adversary, is unacceptable. The pursuit of power
without supplementary strategies designed to accommodate others or
to change their attitudes could end in physical or moral disaster. The
urge to power must therefore be moderated.
In the first interpretation Indian security choices are explained by
material factors. The deficiencies in Indian military and economic
power as well as internal order simply cannot sustain a pure power
approach. In the second interpretation, by contrast, a deep-seated
norm against a power approach exists or evolves. Such a norm may
arise from "egoistic self-interest," which holds that it is rational to try
to avoid a mutually undesirable outcome such as massive violence
between two or more states. Thus, India's first prime minister wrote:
"Self interest itself should drive every nation to...wider co-operation
in order to escape disaster....The self interest of the 'realist' is far too
limited" (Nehru 1981: 540). The norm against pure power approaches
may also arise from other "norms and principles, habit and custom,
and knowledge," as Krasner has argued with regard to regime
development (Krasner 1983b: 10-20). Thus, Gandhian norms and
principles of nonviolence have imbued India with an aversion to a
pure power approach. The role of knowledge in generating this norm
can be illustrated by Nehru's understanding of European history in
terms of a security dilemma engendered by balance of power politics:
''Germany, nursing dreams of world conquest, was obsessed by fears
of encirclement. Soviet Russia feared a combination of her enemies.
England's national policy has long been based on a balance of power
in Europe....Always there has been fear of others, and that fear has led
to aggression." Referring to Spykman's geopolitical ideas, Nehru
noted: "All this looks very clever and realistic and yet it is supremely
foolish, for it is based on the old policy of expansion and empire and
the balance of power, which inevitably leads to conflict and war"
(Nehru 1981: 539-40).
Thus India's modified structuralism in national security affairs is a
function of both expediency and conviction, of material deficiencies
and of ideational legacies and configurations. It is not purely one or
the other. Different sets of decision makers in India, at different times,
have been and are influenced more by one set of factors than the
other. In Nehru's days, the ideational factors were probably the more
important

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source of India's modified structuralism. This interpretation is
reflected in the common judgment that the first prime minister was an
idealist and a moralist.
Since Nehru, the pendulum has swung toward material factors as the
primary cause of India's policy of modified structuralism. India's
security posture and behavior, many have argued, appears incoherent.
Most recently, Sandy Gordon has ascribed this inconsistency to
India's being a "weak-strong" stateweak internally, economically, and
in some respects militarily; strong in terms of its overall size,
resources, and ambitions (Gordon 1995). Our analysis suggests a
somewhat different interpretation of Indian security policies. India's
policies are not particularly incoherent: modified structuralism has
been and is central. What looks like incoherence is the ebb and flow in
the policy-making process between currents that favor modified
structuralist postures based on expediency (material factors) or on
conviction (ideational factors), the former inclining toward a "power"
approach, the latter toward an "institutional" one. On the whole,
Indian policy is a tempered, combinatorial one, susceptible to
modulation and correction, rarely extreme in any direction.
Does India's policy work? Only a sketchy and brief answer to that
question is possible here. On balance, India's policy has served it well.
It has lost wars (1962) and won wars (1971), but above all it has not
been involved in a major war and its casualties in all its wars
combined have been relatively few. It lost some territory to Chinathe
Aksai Chin, essentiallyand some to Pakistan in Kashmir in 1948, but
no more. Notwithstanding intermittent tensions, it has sustained at
least a cold peace with both neighbors since 1971. India has
maintained a foreign policy distance from the great powers. It has
slowlyadmittedly, more slowly than it would likebuilt up its military
and economic strength; it is now a military power that can defend
itself against its major rivals and something more, and with recent
reforms it is poised to push ahead economically. Its internal politics
have been marked by upheavals and violence, but given India's size
and diversity it has managed to preserve both stability and democracy.
That India's approach to security has not brought about a lasting peace
with the country's major rivals or with internal dissidents has been its
greatest limitation.
Conclusion
If India's modified structuralist posture has increasingly been
informed by material deficiencies rather than normative conviction,
what is the future of its security conception? Assuming that material
deficiencies are

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substantially reduced, what will be crucial is whether military or
economic deficiencies are remedied first. If Indian military
deficiencies are corrected before the economic ones, it is likely that a
move toward power and coercive approaches will ensue. If, on the
other hand, the economic deficiencies are dealt with before the
military, then we may see a swing back toward softer Nehruvian
conceptions of security. In such a scenario India would increasingly
participate in cooperative security arrangements with its neighbors,
with the near regions such as the Persian Gulf, Southeast Asia, and the
Asia-Pacific, and with the great powers. New Delhi's more
concessionary stance with regard to its neighbors since 1996 (which
has already produced major river water agreements with Bangladesh
and Nepal), Indian membership in the ARF, and joint military
exercises with Southeast Asian countries and the United States
presage just such a development.
Since 1991, the signs indicate that the economic deficiencies of India
are being treated as the higher priority. In 1991, the financial crisis
unleashed India's economic reforms, which have already raised Indian
growth rates from between 1.5 and 3 percent to 5 percent a year,
brought in foreign investment, and increased India's imports and
exports. The economic crisis and the collapse of the Soviet Union,
which was India's main military supplier, set off a decline in defense
allocations and purchases. In addition, the problems plaguing
indigenous arms production and the nuclear program remain largely
unresolved. Defense allocations and purchases are already, in 1997,
showing signs of increasing once again, but indigenous arms
production and the nuclear program will require a considerable effort.
India seems to have chosen butter over guns for the time being. It
appears to have set its sights on an economic reform process that will
increasingly tie it into a globalizing economy. Growing
interdependence promises to move India in the direction of a more
cooperative notion of security. Involvement in cooperative security
arrangements is vital, because sustained economic growth can lead to
a resurgence of defense spending, as is apparently the case in
Southeast Asia. With high rates of economic growth and membership
in cooperative security structures, India will remain a modified
structuralist statefor the sake of conviction rather than expediencyto
the benefit of international peace and stability in the twenty-first
century.

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5
Japan
Normative Constraints Versus Structural Imperatives
Yoshihide Soeya
Throughout the postwar years, many studies have interpreted the
evolution of Japan's security policy as signifying that the country was
on the verge of reemerging as a great power in its own right. Although
that prediction has not come true, preoccupation with the prospect has
never weakened. In fact, it has heightened in the post-Cold War era
and is becoming a dominant feature of the discourse on Japan's
position in the region and the world, as well as on its security policy.
This view of Japan's future, typically articulated by neorealists,
reflects an inaccurate understanding of contemporary Japan, but its
appeal lies in the belief that, because of systemic pressures from the
structure of international politics, an economic superpower cannot
remain a political pygmy. Kenneth Waltz argues: "Some countries
may strive to become great powers; others may wish to avoid doing
so. The choice, however, is a constrained one. Because of the extent
of their interests, larger units existing in a contentious arena tend to
take on systemwide tasks" (Waltz 1993: 55).
In contrast to neorealists, constructivists seek to explain Japan's actual
behavior throughout the postwar years.

1 Reflecting the legacy of Japan's militaristic behavior as a great

power, postwar Japanese society has developed a strong antimilitarist
norm that has become deeply knit


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into constitutional and legal institutions, political culture, public
opinion, the party system, and the decision-making process. Sporadic
challenges to the norm by traditional nationalists have often been
frustrated by the tenacity of those social and political elements. In
short, Japan in the postwar years has chosen not to become an
independent great power in global and regional politics.
Although this constructivist perspective explains much about the
postwar realities of Japan's security behavior and its impact on the
regional security environment, it does not fully capture the realpolitik
considerations that also inform Japanese security thinking. Japan's
geographical location, its limited physical endowments, and the
complex fabric of the Asia-Pacific security environment ensure that
traditional security concerns remain salient. Japan is a close neighbor
of Russia and China, as well as the United States across the Pacific
Ocean, and is adjacent to the Korean peninsula, traditionally a hotbed
of major-power conflict in Northeast Asia. Moreover, Japan is a
maritime state and lacks critical natural resources. Secure sea lanes,
therefore, continue to be vital to Japan's survival. Thus the standard
realist components of security can never be ignored.
This chapter argues that both realism and constructivism are relevant
in explaining Japan's security thinking and behavior. Japan has
traditional security concerns, but a historical legacy of military
expansionism has prevented it from behaving as an independent great
power in the usual sense. As we shall see, this tension between Japan's
security needs and the normative constraints within which it operates
continues into the post-Cold War era. The question this chapter
addresses, therefore, is not whether Japan will reassert its identity as
an independent military power, but how Japan has coped with this
tension and how its coping has evolved over the years. Although there
is always the possibility that unpredictable developments may trigger
a major shift in Japan's security conception and policy, discussion of
such possibilities would be extremely speculative and beyond the
scope of this analysis.
In the postwar years, Japanese governments have sought to manage
national security needs by limiting the scope of Japan's self-help
efforts strictly to self-defense in order to conform to the pacifist clause
of Article 9 of the postwar constitution, but compensating for this
limitation by relying heavily on the security treaty with the United
States.

2That posture constitutes the essence of Japan's "postwar realism,"

which is based on the dual identity of postwar Japan. In short, Japan
has been a major actor in international politics but has chosen not to
act independently in the security arena. What has allowed this
apparently contradic-

 Page 200
tory condition to continue is none other than the U.S.-Japan security
arrangement (Soeya 1996).
The U.S.-Japan security relationship thus remains central to Japan's
security conception and policy. Not only has it enabled the Japanese
government to take care of traditional security needs despite the
dominant culture of antimilitarism, but it has influenced the way
Japanese governments have conceptualized and approached
nontraditional security concerns. Despite changing domestic and
international developments, the basic tenets of postwar realism and
dual identity continue to inform Japanese security thinking and
behavior. To substantiate this argument, we begin with a discussion of
the referent, the scope and approach to security, and the changes that
have taken place. The second part of the chapter develops the
argument further from the above analytical perspectives.
The Japanese State
In postwar Japan, the state has not been challenged in its authority to
look after political stability and national welfare. During the Cold
War, however, as a referent and provider of national security the state
was constantly challenged by an influential grouping of pacifists and
opposition parties. They viewed the Japanese state as the main
provenance of prewar militarism, whose basic elements, they
believed, continued into the postwar regime, symbolized by the
survival of the emperor system, the institution of the Self-Defense
Force (SDF), and the U.S.-Japan security treaty. The opposing
political forces inclined toward a neutral internationalism based on the
universal appeal of antiwar pacifism (Iwanaga 1985). Although
resistance to involvement in military affairs is still strong among the
general public, ideological attacks against the political authority
gradually declined toward the late 1960s as Japanese society achieved
affluence under the government controlled by the Liberal Democratic
Party (LDP). More recently, the social-democratic ideology of
internationalism as an antithesis to statism has lost its appeal, and its
influence in the security debate has considerably weakened with the
decline of the Cold War.
The latter development has had two consequences. First, the state as a
provider of security is no longer controversial. Security policy making
by the government is unlikely to develop into harsh political fighting
in the domestic arena so long as the government remains within the
constitutional constraints. Consequently, one of the two key elements
of Japanese postwar realismthe government's interpretation of the
constitutionality of the SDF and the U.S.-Japan security treatyhas

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become much less controversial in domestic politics. In fact, it has
now become possible to debate the scope of the constitutional
constraints, including the right of collective self-defense. The second
consequence is a corollary of the first: the Japanese government has
begun to consolidate the external dimensions of its postwar realism.
Tokyo is making a concerted effort to solidify and build on the U.S.-
Japan security treaty, particularly with regard to Article 6, which
stipulates the legality of U.S. military presence in Japan to promote
peace and stability in the Far East.
Scope of Security
During the Cold War, the Soviet threat and instability on the Korean
peninsula were major security concerns. They provided a fundamental
rationale for the U.S.-Japan security relationship. But, as a
consequence of the massive capability of the United States and its
determination to meet the Soviet challenge without a direct military
contribution from Japan, the Japanese public was shielded from these
security threats despite their importance in the eyes of the central
decision makers. The public did not necessarily regard the traditional
security threats as posing imminent danger to the survival of Japan or
to its territorial integrity. As far as the pacifist forces were concerned,
threats from the Soviet Union were directed against the United States.
Thus Japan would be safer if the U.S.-Japan security ties were
terminated. In the context of this popular sentiment and under the
effective protection of the United States, the Japanese government did
not make specific references to traditional security threats in its
articulation of official security policy throughout much of the postwar
period. Even in the 1970s, when the Japanese government began to
discuss U.S.-Japan military cooperation, a deliberate effort was made
to deemphasize traditional security threats.
Traditional Security
The government's articulation of security issues, however, has begun
to change significantly in the 1990s as Japanese policy makers have
come to discuss traditional security concerns openly. The Diplomatic
Bluebook of 1995, for example, states: "The Asia-Pacific
region...faces a host of unresolved problems and elements of
instability, including heightened military tensions between the North
and the South on the Korean peninsula, North Korea's suspected
development of nuclear weapons, and the dispute over the territorial
claims to the Spratly Islands." The "National Defense Program
Outline in and After FY 1996" (New Taiko), adopted by the Security
Council and the Cabinet on November 28, 1995, summarized the new
regional situation as follows:

 Page 202
"While the possibility of a global armed conflict has become remote,
complicated and diverse regional conflicts are taking place in the
Asia-Pacific and new kinds of dangers such as the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction are on the increase. In the areas
surrounding Japan, the possibility of a situation which could seriously
affect the security of Japan cannot be excluded." New Taiko made
specific reference to Russia's large-scale military capabilities
(including nuclear arsenals), to the military expansion and
modernization of other countries in the region, to various unresolved
territorial issues, and to uncertainty on the Korean peninsula.
One underlying feature in these articulations of security concerns is
that they refer mainly to sources of instability for the Asia-Pacific
region, which then would have security implications for Japan. This
indicates that the Japanese government is primarily concerned about
the uncertainty in the regional security environment and has not yet
ascertained how such unpredictability would affect Japan's security.
Most of the expressed concerns indeed focus on Japan's immediate
neighbors: Russia, China, and the Korean peninsula.
Russia
Japanese security policy makers continue to be bothered by lingering
problems with Russia (among them the issue of the Northern
Territories), its military capability, the safety of its nuclear power
industry, and the uncertainty in Russian domestic politics and its
implications for Moscow's external behavior (Ministry of Foreign
Affairs [MOFA] of Japan 1996). The Defense Agency perhaps takes
the most alarmist stance in this respect. While acknowledging that
"Russian forces in the Far East continue to show the tendency toward
quantitative reduction, and their military activity is low key, and their
state of readiness is considered lower than before," the Defense White
Paper of 1994 points out that "they still constitute enormous military
strength and are still being modernized through the relocation of new
equipment from the European theater. The presence of such Russian
forces in the Far East, coupled with the unpredictability of the Russian
forces establishment, constitute a de-stabilizing factor for the security
of the Asia-Pacific region" (Defense Agency 1995a: 5).
Instability and fluidity in both Russia's and Japan's domestic politics,
though different in character and magnitude, have contributed to the
stalemate in the negotiations over the Northern Territories. In
particular, Russian attitudes toward the territorial dispute are
becoming increasingly hard-line, contributing to the intensification of
Japan's longstanding uneasiness with its northern neighbor. Although
the Japanese

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government has helped Russia to stabilize and democratize in
cooperation with the international community, it is no secret that
skepticism about the effectiveness of these measures has been a
dominant feature of Japanese attitudes. Moreover, suspicion toward
Russia is not seriously contested by any significant group of Japanese.
The Japanese government will continue to remain vigilant about
Russia's security posture and military capability as well as its overall
policy toward Japan. How and why those factors might pose a threat
for Japan, however, is not seriously examined by Japan's central
decision makers. Russia is simply regarded as a source of instability
for the Asia-Pacific region.
China
In general, the idea of China as a security threat is alien to the
Japanese government and its people. Until the Sino-American
rapprochement in the early 1970s, the Japanese government found
"containing China" to be the most troublesome aspect of the U.S.
Cold War strategy in Asia. From their long history of contact with
China, the Japanese knew that China is a "small universe" unto itself.
China, therefore, did not figure as a security threat in Japan's postwar
realism.
When Shigeru Yoshida decided to sign the security treaty with the
United States and thus to subordinate Japan's traditional security
concerns to those of the United States, he tried in vain to resist U.S.
pressure to recognize the regime in Taiwan. Chinese communism was
different from that of the Soviet Union, Yoshida argued, and Japan's
role should be to keep China as an independent entity rather than to
contain it. Maintaining some form of economic relations with China at
the height of the Cold War did not represent a contradiction for Japan;
it was a natural development because Japan conceptualized relations
with China outside the logic of the Cold War. For the Japanese
government as well as its people, the most significant consequence of
Sino-Japanese diplomatic normalization in 1972 was that Sino-
Japanese relations and the U.S.-Japan relationship finally became
compatible. It was the new logic of the Sino-American strategic
alignment that made this possible, but the Japanese government and
its people refused to see themselves as a factor in that strategic
configuration (Soeya 1995).
A central goal in Japan's China policy since then has been to support
China's modernization programs, its economic development, and its
domestic stability. That aim has not changed fundamentally despite
the Tiananmen incident in June 1989. Japan was not pleased with the
international sanctions against China, and in August 1991 Japanese
Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu became the first G-7 leader to visit
China

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since the Tiananmen Square incident. Since Kaifu's symbolic visit,
Japan even began to add a new dimension to its China policy and a
new rationale for its commitment to China. In his policy speech in
Beijing, Kaifu used the phrase "Japan-China relations in the world"
for the first time in a Japanese policy pronouncement, arguing that a
stable Sino-Japanese relationship is important for the stability and
prosperity of the Asia-Pacific region and the world (Ishii 1995). The
approach was consolidated by the official visit of General-Secretary
Jiang Zemin to Japan in April 1992 and by the first-ever visit to China
by the Japanese emperor in October of the same year.
A series of new developments since 1992, however, have begun to
change Japan's perceptions of China in a significant way. The
emphasis on maintaining good relations with China and supporting its
modernization efforts continues to inform the official articulation of
Japan's China policy. But there are unmistakable signs that the
Japanese people in general and some of the central decision makers
have become increasingly concerned about new challenges, if not a
threat, posed by China. The central challenge, in essence, is that of
coping with a new China that appears to be interested in extending its
universe beyond the confines that were accepted during the Cold War.
The Chinese proclamation of a territorial law in February 1992 that
included the disputed Senkaku Islands (as well as the entire Spratly
Islands group in the South China Sea) within Chinese waters, for
instance, rang an alarm bell for security policy makers. Japan has
claimed sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands since 1895. China
disputed that claim in 1971 when the agreement to return the
administrative rights of Okinawa (and the Senkakus) to Japan was
about to be formally signed. When Chinese fishing boats intruded into
the Senkaku waters in the midst of negotiations over the peace and
friendship treaty in 1978 and Japan protested, the Chinese government
decided to shelve the issue. The Japanese perceived the proclamation
of the Chinese territorial law in 1992 as an important departure from
that earlier Chinese position, and the Japanese have begun to worry
about Chinese territorial ambitions.
Strong Chinese resistance at the first ASEAN regional forum to
discuss the territorial issues in the South China Sea clearly aggravated
Japanese suspicion about Chinese ambitions. Against this backdrop,
China's seizure of the Mischief Reef, well within the exclusive
economic zone of the Philippines, in February 1995 was not perceived
as an isolated incident. The use of military exercises to intimidate the
Taiwanese movement toward democracy in the spring of 1996 in the
midst of its first presidential election was enough to stimulate a deep
concern

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in Japan over China's propensity to use military force for political
purposes.
In August 1995, the Japanese government decided for the first time in
its history to suspend grant assistance as a protest against continued
nuclear testing by Beijing. It is symbolic that the decision was made
by a socialist prime minister, Tomiichi Murayama. Traditionally,
Japanese progressive forces and opinion leaders were sympathetic to
the Chinese nuclear program, arguing that it was for self-defense and
peaceful purposes. Indeed, many of them relied on that logic to
support China's nuclear development in the 1960s while denouncing
the U.S.-Japan security treaty; but now they recognize the necessity of
the U.S.-Japan security treaty and denounce Chinese nuclear testing.
In October 1995, Foreign Minister Yohei Kono of the Murayama
cabinet stated in the National Diet that the China factor ''is quite
significant from the viewpoints of Japanese security, the U.S.-Japan
security regime, and the future of Asia."

3This statement indicates that the Japanese government has begun to

be concerned about the long-term implications of an increased
Chinese influence for Japanese and regional security. The China
factor has not yet been designated as an explicit threat, nor has Japan
begun to think in terms of "containing" China, but the change in
perception is unmistakable.

How these changing perceptions will affect Japan's China policy is

still not clear, but China's new assertiveness "has cast a new light on
its rapid economic growth and seeming inability to move beyond
nineteenth-century concepts of state sovereignty" (Green and Self
1996: 36). In Japanese academic circles, which have not traditionally
been alarmist about China, there is an emerging consensus that
China's external behavior is a case of classic power politics (Okabe
1996).
A long-term assessment of China's future still involves a scenario of
economic stagnation and political disruption, which in fact used to be
the predominant source of Japanese concern. Since 1992, however,
the wind has shifted toward discussion of the self-assertiveness of the
new China, suggested by rising Chinese nationalism and proactive
military behavior that appears in the eyes of the Japanese to be
sustained by long-term strategic thinking. As a direct reflection of this
development, sympathy in Japan for Taiwan appears to have
increased. The new feeling toward Taiwan has certainly been
influenced by Taiwan's remarkable progress in development and
democracy, but it also has much to do with China's overbearing
behavior.
The new developments discussed here are of concern but are not yet
major determinants of Japanese security policy. Even today, there are
strong pro-China elements in Japan who do not subscribe to the notion

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of a "China threat" even as a remote possibility. If China's overbearing
attitudes toward the region are modified and softened in the future or
if China's domestic problems and instability become greater concerns
than its external behaviors, there is still an excellent chance that
Japan's traditional attitude of seeking Chinese stability and
development could once again become the central element in Japanese
thinking.
Korean Peninsula
Much of Japan's security concern with respect to the Korean peninsula
involves two elements of the North Korean question: instability in the
peninsula, initiated either by North Korea's government or by its
domestic instability, and suspected North Korean nuclear
development. Regarding the former, the sources of threat discussed by
security experts, if not articulated in public documents, include inflow
of refugees, intrusion of terrorists, domestic instability instigated by
those among the Korean minority in Japan who are sympathetic to
Pyongyang, and possible military attacks against U.S. bases in Japan
and Japanese supporting forces.
Concern over North Korea's nuclear program and missile
development has become serious in the Japanese government,
particularly since North Korea refused to allow the return of the
inspection team of the International Atomic Energy Agency in
February 1993 and announced its withdrawal from the
Nonproliferation Treaty in March 1993. The 1993 Diplomatic
Bluebook stated: "This issue is particularly a grave one bearing on the
security of Northeast Asia" (MOFA Japan 1994: 17). The 1994
Defense White Paper was more alarmist: "Particularly, North Korea's
suspected nuclear development is not only a problem that affects the
security of North East Asia, including Japan, but also a serious
problem for the international community....Furthermore, a
combination of nuclear arms development and missile development
could create a more dangerous situation" (Defense Agency 1995a: 5).
Given the volatile situation on the Korean peninsula and the
unpredictability of North Korea's intentions and behavior, the
combination of the suspected North Korean nuclear program and the
development of medium-range missiles poses a direct military threat
to Japan. Moreover, the Japanese government worries that North
Korea's nuclear program has the potential to encourage nuclear
proliferation on the Korean peninsula as well as elsewhere in the
world, undermining the international nonproliferation regime.
In the longer term, some Japanese security experts, if only privately,
perceive two other potential sources of security concern from the
Korean peninsula. The first is an instability inherent in the unification

 Page 207
process if indeed the process begins; the second is the potential new
security policy of a united Korea, for which anti-Japanese nationalism
might become an important driving force. With regard to the latter
concern, the dispute over Takeshima has always had the potential to
ignite Korean anti-Japanese nationalism. The Takeshima Islands,
claimed by Japan since 1905, were placed under South Korea's
physical control in 1952. Since then, Japan has reasserted its claim of
sovereignty whenever necessarymost recently in February 1996 when
both Tokyo and Seoul declared exclusive economic zones of 200
nautical miles according to the Law of the Sea Convention. Although
the declaration was a legal procedure and was understood as such
between the two administrations, the public, the mass media, and
many politicians in Korea reacted highly emotionally. The Japanese
reaction was calm, in general, but the episode was a reminder that the
Takeshima issue will continue to be a source of mutual emotional
recriminations, heightening Japanese caution about Korean
nationalism.
Economic Security
After Japan's devastating defeat in World War II, reconstruction of the
national economy became a top priority for the Japanese governments.
It affected the most fundamental aspect of national security, the
survival of the people. Their economic well-being was also considered
crucial to prevent the infiltration and expansion of communism among
the Japanese people as well as in domestic politics. In the early
postwar period, the United States regarded Japan's economic problems
as incompatible with its own Asian strategy and therefore provided
massive economic assistance along with effective security protection.
That situation allowed the Japanese policy makers to devote their
attention to economic development while taking advantage of the
benefits of the Pax Americana.
The basis for this mentality and the attendant greenhouse effect that
discouraged the Japanese from taking traditional security seriously,
however, began to be shaken with the weakening of the Pax
Americana at the end of the 1960s under the Nixon administration.
The shift led Japanese security experts and decision makers to
undertake a serious reconceptualization of Japan's security needs,
which culminated in the concept of comprehensive security. The idea
of comprehensive security, formalized by security experts and
presented to Prime Minister Masayoshi Ohira in 1980, is often seen as
tantamount to a preoccupation with economic security alone that
permitted Japan to disregard military security issues under the
protection of the United States. The reasoning behind the concept,
however, was quite the opposite: it was the percep-

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tion of declining American hegemony, not the predominance of the
United States, that propelled the idea of comprehensive security, of
which economic security was an important part. With the decline of
U.S. economic hegemony and the rising temptation to engage in
economic protectionism, it became harder to maintain a liberal
international economic system. Moreover, the management of
economic friction with the United States became an important
agendum as the United States began to readjust its own economic
policies and to regard its own economic security as increasingly
important.
The two oil shocks in the 1970s reminded Japan that its postwar
economic success was fragile. The striking features of the Japanese
economy at the time were a major dependence on crude oil, which
accounted for 77.6 percent of the country's energy requirements, and
dependence on the Middle East for 77.4 percent of its oil supply (Orr
1993: 291). The shocks made the Japanese government recognize not
only its near-total dependence on imported energy resources but also
its lack of effective policies to cope with such a fragile situation.
Under these circumstances, differences with the United States over the
management of economic problems were an added burden to the
Japanese governmentnot necessarily because the U.S. demands were
perceived as damaging to Japan's economic well-being (in fact, the
dominant perception not only of the Americans but also of many
Japanese was quite the opposite), but because the economic
differences could spill over into the security relationship and
undermine the basis of Japan's postwar realism.
Japanese economic nationalists, such as those in the Ministry of
International Trade and Industry (MITI), were generally interested in
protecting Japan's domestic interests, including their own bureaucratic
control over the Japanese economy. Security and political experts,
however, tended to argue for the paramount importance of preserving
a healthy overall relationship with the United States. While the
Foreign Ministry was leading the economic negotiations with the
United States, therefore, Japan repeatedly made concessions in the
end, albeit grudgingly.
That situation continued into the early 1990s, when MITI began to
lead economic negotiations with the United States. The symbolic
turning point came in February 1994 when Prime Minister Morihiro
Hosokawa, accepting the argument of MITI officials, said no to
President Bill Clinton, rejecting the U.S. insistence on "numerical
targets" in the automobile negotiations. It was the first time that
economic negotiations had broken up a summit meeting between the
United States and Japan in the postwar years. At this juncture,
however, the Japanese

 Page 209
economy began to slip rapidly, andas already discussednew traditional
security concerns began to emerge, calling eventually for the
"reaffirmation" of the U.S.-Japan security alliance in April 1996.
Now, the Japanese government perceives economic problems such as
sluggish growth and the hollowing out of manufacturing industries, as
well as those associated with the rapidly aging society, as threats to
the wellbeing of the nation. Increasingly the causes are considered to
lie in the domestic structure, and the solutions to require a
fundamental reconfiguration of the postwar political and economic
system. Consequently, the high tensions that have long characterized
U.S.-Japan economic relations have begun to subside.
Milieu Goals
In the post-Cold War era, the Japanese government regards the
management of fluidity in international relations and power transition
after the demise of the Cold War structure as an important security
goal. The Diplomatic Bluebook of 1995, for example, defined Japan's
"active diplomatic efforts to secure international peace and security"
as one of the three main pillars of Japan's security policy along with
"firmly maintaining the U.S.-Japan security arrangements and
securing Japan's own appropriate defense capability" (MOFA Japan
1995).
In the Japanese government's recent enunciations of security concerns,
such milieu goals are increasingly taking a prominent place alongside
the solidification of the U.S.-Japan alliance. This phenomenon has
several implications. First, Japan's status requires it to assume
"systemwide tasks" (i.e., to manage international security issues), but
those functions must be performed in a way that does not contradict
the premises of Japan's postwar realism, and in particular its
commitment to military self-restraint. Second, to the extent that
Japan's contribution to traditional security continues to be constrained
by the framework of postwar realism, the Japanese government
considers it important to play a role in other security areas. In other
words, contributing to security in nontraditional domains is not only
considered a rational goal in itself in the post-Cold War context but is
also thought to be necessary to preserve the basic framework of
postwar realism.
These milieu goals involve both global and regional issues. Global
issues often discussed in government documents include
environmental conservation, human rights and humanitarian issues,
population and health problems, and proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction. Regional issues include, apart from the global issues, the
lack of confidence among Asian neighbors, divergent and ambiguous
perceptions

 Page 210
about the regional roles of the United States and other major powers,
and the growing military buildup by countries in the region.
Domestic Security
In the early postwar years, social uprisings by leftists and challenges
by pacifists to the government's conservative, pro-United States
policies were major sources of domestic instability. Soon after the
war, amid Japan's economic devastation, popular dissatisfaction with
the economy was easily linked with antiestablishment political
movements. This situation compelled the U.S. and Japanese
governments to include a stipulation in the 1951 security treaty to the
effect that the U.S. forces in Japan could be used to "put down large-
scale internal riots and disturbances in Japan." However, as Japanese
society became affluent toward the end of the 1960s and the 1970s,
the dissident political movements gradually came to be seen as less
threatening to domestic security.
Under those circumstances, contingencies such as a major earthquake
came to occupy the minds of Japanese policy makers and experts. The
"Comprehensive Security Strategy Report" of 1980, for instance,
warned that because Japan's political, economic, and cultural
functions are concentrated in large cities that are vulnerable to severe
earthquakes, effective measures to prepare for and cope with such
occurrences are a matter of comprehensive national security. New
Taiko of 1995 also cited "large-scale disasters" as an issue of domestic
security.
Recently, in a volatile post-Cold War security environment, the
Japanese government has begun to see the danger of terrorist
insurgency as a serious threat to national security. According to a draft
plan of New Taiko reported in the Asahi Shinbun in May 1995, Japan
should be prepared for a variety of dangers rather than for a military
invasion aloneincluding (in addition to obstruction of sea lanes,
encroachment on the territorial sky, and partial occupation of national
land) various terrorist activities and intrusion by armed refugees. As
noted earlier, many of these contingencies are associated with
instability and conflict in North Korea and the Korean peninsula, even
though the association is not explicitly stated in any government
document.
Approaches to Security
Such a broad range of security concerns naturally call for a variety of
means to cope with them. Japan combines traditional means of self-
help and alliance to meet traditional security challenges with
diplomatic and economic means to cope with nontraditional issues.
The actual mix of

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these measures is significantly affected by Japan's dual identity and
the premises of its postwar realism.
Approaches to Traditional Security
In postwar Japan, a balance-of-power approach to traditional security
concerns has been officially taboo; such an approach would imply that
Japan's involvement in power politics had gone beyond provision for
its self-defense. Postwar Japanese security policy pronouncements,
therefore, have never referred to the concept in justifying Japanese
approaches to security. Indeed, the tendency has been to deny publicly
any Japanese involvement in balance-of-power politics. In reality,
however, balance of power has been an important component of
Japanese security thinking and behavior. Prime Minister Shigeru
Yoshida's choice in 1951 was to conclude the U.S.-Japan security
treaty, which in fact subordinated Japan's traditional security concerns
to those of the United States in the balance-of-power game. In the
tradition of Japan's postwar realism, Japan's own efforts at self-help
have been justified only as means of self-defense. This approach to
traditional security has been affirmed repeatedly through a series of
central governmental policy documents and Japan's actual behavior.
Self-Help
Before the 1976 "National Defense Program Outline" (Taiko) was
developed, Japan's defense policy was articulated in a series of four
defense programs respectively adopted in 1957, 1961, 1966, and
1972. The guiding principles for those programs were stated in the
"Basic Policy for National Defense" (Kokubo no Kihon Hoshin)
adopted in 1957. That document did not state how the U.S.-Japan
security ties and Japan's own defense were related. It simply said that
the U.S.-Japan security system is the "basis" of defense efforts against
foreign aggression and asserted that Japan's acquisition of an effective
defense capability should be a "gradual" one "commensurate with its
national power and conditions and within the limits necessary for self-
defense.''
A serious attempt to establish an organic linkage between Japan's self-
help efforts and the U.S.-Japan security ties was triggered by a new
U.S. policy articulated in the 1969 Nixon Doctrine, which called for
increasing its Asian allies' participation in their own defense and
development. The link eventually materialized in the form of Taiko,
adopted in October 1976 (Tanaka 1996). Taiko dismissed the
likelihood of fullscale aggression against Japan and recognized only
the possibility of

 Page 212
limited military conflict in Japan's neighborhood. Based on that view,
Taiko called for the establishment of the "Standard Defense Force" to
ensure "the maintenance of a full surveillance posture in peacetime
and the ability to cope effectively with situations up to the point of
limited and small-scale aggression." In this context it is significant
that the government's decision to set the defense budget ceiling at 1
percent of gross national product was made in November 1976, one
month after the adoption of Taiko, and thus apparently was an
important element of the Taiko regime. Any contingency beyond
"limited and small-scale aggression" would be met through the U.S.-
Japan security arrangements.
When the concept of comprehensive security was formalized by
Japanese security experts and presented to Prime Minister Masayoshi
Ohira in 1980, the significance of Japanese self-help efforts was
reaffirmed using a similar logic. The "Comprehensive Security
Strategy Report" argued that the new U.S. security policy based on the
Nixon Doctrine augmented the importance of military security issues
for Japan. Therefore, "for the first time in the postwar years, Japan has
to think seriously about its own efforts toward [military] self-help"
(Sogo-anzenhosho Kenkyu-group 1980: 33). The report thus justified
Japan's defense capability as a "denial capability," which should be
effective in deterring a small-scale and limited aggression. National
defense based on such a capability would be sufficient, it argued,
under the aegis of the sustained U.S.-Japan security system, which
should be effective for the defense of Japan and for maintaining a
military balance vis-à-vis the Soviet Union (Sogo-anzenhosho
Kenkyu-group 1980: 50-53). In other words, Japan's own defense
efforts were justified within the confines of constitutional constraints
and as an integral component of the overall scheme of the U.S.-Japan
security arrangements, which meant the reaffirmation of Japan's
postwar realism under new circumstances, based on its dual identity.
In the post-Cold War environment, the "National Defense Program
Outline in and After FY 1996" (New Taiko), which was officially
adopted on November 28, 1995, discussed the role of Japan's defense
capabilities in three areas: national defense; response to large-scale
disasters and various other situations, including a situation in the areas
surrounding Japan "which will have an important influence on
national peace and stability"; and contribution to the creation of a
more stable security environment, including participation in
international peacekeeping activities, promotion of security dialogues
and exchanges among defense authorities, and cooperation on arms
control and disarmament. Accordingly, it dropped a reference to
"limited and small-scale aggression" as a

 Page 213
target of Japan's defense preparedness, although it continued to
employ the concept of a Standard Defense Force.
The signs are unmistakable that the SDF's role has now expanded
beyond the traditional role of national defense into two new areas:
"various situations including a situation in the areas surrounding
Japan" and the creation of a stable security environment. The first role
implies that the SDF will be coping with terrorist activities and
inflows of refugees and supporting U.S. military operations in Japan's
vicinity based on the stipulations of the security treaty and the peace
constitution. The second role implies that the SDF will be supporting
Japan's overall efforts to pursue the milieu goal of creating a stable
security environment through noncombative measures. The adoption
of these new roles is a reflection of Japan's new perceptions of
security concerns in the post-Cold War era.
The U.S.-Japan security relationship is still considered the
fundamental and indispensable basis for these new dimensions of
Japan's self-help efforts. As such the fundamental premises of Japan's
postwar realism are still central to it's approach to traditional security.
U.S.-Japan Security Ties
Traditional security concerns originally provided the fundamental
rationale for the U.S.-Japan security relationship. Moreover, the
security relationship allowed the Japanese government to live up to
the peace constitution, which prohibited Japan from becoming
involved in "international disputes." The U.S.-Japan security setup has
thus allowed postwar Japan to maintain its dual identityas a major
actor coping with traditional security issues and as a pacifist nation
committed to a nonthreatening security posture.
In the 1970s, reacting to their perception that the Pax Americana was
declining, Japanese policy makers began their first serious attempt to
establish a linkage between Japan's defense efforts and the mission of
the U.S.-Japan security arrangements. The consolidation of the Taiko
regime, therefore, proceeded alongside a search for institutionalized
defense cooperation between Japan and the United States. A concrete
outcome was the adoption of the "Guidelines for U.S.-Japan Defense
Cooperation" in November 1978.
The guidelines defined the broad responsibilities of each side and
called for joint studies on operational issues in three areas: prevention
of aggression against Japan, responses to military attacks on Japan,
and U.S.-Japan cooperation in case of a conflict in the Far East. Two
sets of studies were conducted on joint defense planning as stipulated
in the guidelines: one presupposing an attack on Japan, the other
envisioning

 Page 214
an emergency in the Far East. The latter studies, because of the
constitutional and political constraints on Japan's regional security
role, were not very productive. The former, however, resulted in an
important development after the May 1981 meeting between Prime
Minister Zenko Suzuki and President Ronald Reagan, at which Suzuki
agreed to make efforts to protect 1,000 nautical miles west of Guam
and north of the Philippines. Thereafter, defense of sea lanes became
an important component of U.S.-Japan joint defense planning, the
study of which was completed in December 1986. In addition, Japan
has cooperated with the United States by extending host-nation
support for U.S. forces in Japan and by supplying military technology.
In recent years, Japan's expenditures for support of U.S. forces in
Japan have accounted for about 10 percent of its total annual defense
budget, which makes Japan the most generous supporter of U.S.
forces abroad. The Japanese government also decided in January 1983
to supply military technology to the United States, making an
exception to its ban on arms exports.

New Taiko recognized three functions of the U.S.-Japan security

relationship: it is indispensable to "Japan's security"; it will continue
to play a key role in achieving "peace and stability in the surrounding
region of Japan" and establishing "a more stable security
environment"; and it facilitates Japanese efforts for "peace and
stability of the international community, including promotion of
regional multilateral security dialogues and cooperation, as well as
support for various United Nations activities."
The most important of these functions in the post-Cold War context
amounts to a new role for the U.S.-Japan security relationship in
maintaining regional stability. That function, however, does not
necessarily derive from particular stipulations of the security treaty,
nor is it directed against any particular country. Rather, it would
become apparent only in the long-term dynamics of shifting great-
power relations. This role of stabilizing changing regional security
environments could be called an implicit function of the U.S.-Japan
alliance. The "U.S.-Japan Joint Declaration on Security," signed by
Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto and President Bill Clinton in April
1996, reaffirmed this logic. The Declaration states that "the Japan-
U.S. security relationship, based on the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation
and Security between Japan and the United States of America,
remains the cornerstone for achieving common security objectives,
and for maintaining a stable and prosperous environment for the Asia-
Pacific region as we enter the twenty-first century."
The U.S.-Japan alliance also has had the explicit function of dealing
with potential short-term regional conflict such as the situation on the

 Page 215
Korean peninsula. This function derives from Article 6 of the bilateral
security treaty, which states: "For the purpose of contributing to the
security of Japan and the maintenance of international peace and
security in the Far East, the United States of America is granted the
use by its land, air and naval forces of facilities and areas in Japan."
The 1996 Joint Declaration elaborated the explicit function of the
alliance by listing five areas where efforts should be undertaken to
advance cooperation: (1) continued close consultation on defense
policies and military postures, as well as exchange of information and
views on the international situation; (2) a review of the 1978
guidelines for Japan-U.S. defense cooperation, including studies on
bilateral cooperation in dealing with situations that may emerge in the
areas surrounding Japan and would influence the peace and security of
Japan; (3) promotion of the bilateral cooperative relationship through
the Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA) signed on
April 15, 1996; (4) promotion of mutual exchange of technology and
equipment; and (5) prevention of the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction and their means of delivery, as well as cooperation in the
ongoing study of ballistic missile defense. The contact between the
Japanese and U.S. defense establishments to promote this new logic is
expanding rapidly. The central decision makers' aim is to accomplish
this explicit role of the alliance without major changes in the current
political arrangement, including the constitution.
Two concrete measures agreed to during Clinton's 1996 state visit are
the ACSA and a revision of the "Guidelines for Defense Cooperation
Between Japan and the United States." The ACSA defines ways and
means of U.S.-Japan cooperation in such areas as joint military
exercises, U.N. peacekeeping operations, and international
humanitarian relief activities. The revised Guidelines for U.S.-Japan
Defense Cooperation were completed in September 1997. Categories
of U.S.-Japan security cooperation to cope with "situations in areas
surrounding Japan" listed in the new guidelines are relief activities
and measures to deal with refugees; search and rescue; noncombatant
evacuation operations; activities for ensuring the effectiveness of
economic sanctions; use of Japanese facilities by the U.S. military;
rear-area support (supply, transportation, maintenance of equipment,
medical services, security of U.S. bases in Japan, communications,
etc.); surveillance; minesweeping; and sea and air space management.
The new guidelines listed 40 concrete items of cooperation as
examples.
Regarding a potential nuclear threat from North Korea, Japan will
continue to rely on its security cooperation with the United States. A
newly emerging case of such cooperation is in theater missile defense

 Page 216
(TMD). The first administrative working group meeting on TMD was
held in December 1993, followed by a second meeting in May 1994
and a third in October 1994, for purposes of information exchange and
joint research planning (Defense Agency 1995b). Nothing concrete,
however, has evolved yet.
China is not an explicit target of the efforts to strengthen the U.S.-
Japan security alliance. The "reaffirmed" U.S.-Japan alliance,
however, has an implicit purpose of maintaining a balance in regional
security in general if not against a specific country. Whether this
implicit aspect of the alliance will develop into explicit security
planning against China, therefore, will depend on Chinese actions
over the long run and on the perceptions of decision makers in Tokyo
and Washington.
Approaches to Economic Security
As long as the Bretton Woods system was stable under strong U.S.
leadership, Japan's economic vulnerabilities did not present
themselves as imminent security concerns for the Japanese decision
makers. But as the Bretton Woods system began to weaken in the
early 1970s, Japanese governments began to perceive an acute need to
cope with economic security concerns. The U.S. inclination since the
Nixon administration has been to redefine its approach to international
economic issues in terms of protecting and promoting national
interests; that tendency has given rise to chronic structural economic
friction between Japan and the United States. As the United States
increasingly viewed economic relations with Japan as having
significant implications for its own national security, coping with the
economic friction began to have security implications for Japannot
necessarily because of its effects on Japan's economic prosperity but
because of its potential to spill over into the security relationship.
Resource Diplomacy
The import of natural resources and the export of manufactured
products were two crucial pillars of Japan's postwar economic
development. When the prospect of a China market was shattered in
1950 by the outbreak of the Korean War and the subsequent U.S.
decision to "contain" China, the United States decided to nurture a
Southeast Asian market for Japan's growth. In this overall strategy,
the Japanese government would use war reparations to strengthen its
economic ties with Southeast Asia, and particularly to establish a
pattern of trade that exchanged natural resources from Southeast Asia
for manufactured products from Japan. Later, Japan's official
developmental assistance

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(ODA) to Southeast Asia was deployed for the same purposes.
Japanese investment in Southeast Asia also grew as an integral part of
the overall development of economic ties.
The oil shock of 1973which caused a reduced oil supply and a sharp
hike in the oil price (from about $3 to $12 per barrel) and had a
hyperinflationary impact on the domestic economywas a sobering
event that made the Japanese recognize a fundamental vulnerability of
their nation. The Japanese government responded to the crisis with
straightforward resource diplomacy toward the Arab countries, even
at the risk of contradicting the U.S. pro-Israel policy. Concurrently,
Tokyo supported the overall U.S. policy in the Middle East wherever
possible, because support for U.S. policy was considered crucial for
the stability of the Middle East and thus for Japan's economic security
as well as for the stability of the U.S.-Japan security relationship.
The sense of crisis during the 1973 oil shock was so acute that Prime
Minister Kakuei Tanaka dispatched an entourage led by Takeo Miki,
an LDP leader who would succeed Tanaka a year later, with a major
aid package of $3 billion including $1 billion each to Iran and Iraq.
This move was a clear deviation from Japan's usual approach of
request-based aid giving. Accordingly, Japan's ODA to the Middle
East increased sharply as a proportion of Japan's total ODA, from 1.4
percent in 1973 to 10.6 percent in 1975 to 24.5 percent in 1977 (Orr
1993: 291-92). This and other pro-Arab policies, particularly the
government's announcement in November 1973 indicating that it
might reconsider its policy toward Israel, were not welcomed by the
U.S. administration. Nonetheless, placating oil-supplying countries
proved effective. In December 1973, OPEC decided to designate
Japan as a "friendly" nation whose oil supply would not be reduced.
To the extent that these efforts at resource diplomacy proved
effective, the other logical approach was to support U.S. policy in the
Middle East as much as possible. The new ODA after the first oil
shock, therefore, included a political consideration to promote the
overall U.S. objectives in the Middle East. During the Ford and the
Carter administrations, for example, Japan increased its assistance to
Egypt, which chose to lean away from the Soviet Union toward the
United States. Between 1977 and 1980 Egypt received $441.64
million in Japanese ODA, and through the mid-1980s it enjoyed the
highest amount of yen credit increases of any recipient (Orr 1990: 94).
Japan's strategic aid to support the overall U.S. policy in the 1980s
was a natural development emerging from the political use of ODA
initially deployed in support of its resource diplomacy.

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Energy Security
The oil crisis in 1973 made Japan realize the urgent need to stabilize
the supply of energy resources. The Japanese approach to the energy
situation was twofold: to diversify its supply countries and to diversify
its energy resources. This policy was formally endorsed by a cabinet
decision in December 1975. Accordingly, the government set the
target figure for the oil share among all energy sources in 1980 as 68.9
percent, compared with the actual figure of 77.6 percent in 1973. The
policy proved effective; the oil share in 1980 actually dropped to 66.4
percent.
In 1992, Japan depended on imports for 83.6 percent of its energy
resources. In the same year, 58.2 percent of energy came from oil,
16.1 percent from coal, 10.6 percent from natural gas, 10.0 percent
from nuclear energy, and the rest from hydroelectric power and other
sources (Genshiryoku Iinkai 1995: 28, 30). Japanese oil imports,
however, still come mostly from the Middle East, indicating that the
policy to diversify supply countries has not been very successful.
Japan is trying to fill the gap by lowering the share of oil and
compensating with an increase in the share of nuclear energy. The
government projects that the share of oil among energy resources will
be reduced to 47.7 percent by the year 2010, for example, whereas the
share of nuclear energy will be increased to 16.9 percent
(Genshiryoku Iinkai 1995: 30). As the world's largest importer of
energy, Japan is weary of the unpredictable international energy
situationhence its quest to produce nuclear energy (Donnelly 1993).
With regard to Japan's energy reserve, the Petroleum Reserve Law
enacted in 1975 demands that petroleum-related private companies
together hold the total of a 90-day reserve. That goal was achieved in
1981. The government itself began to hold oil reserves in 1978, and
by 1988 it had achieved its initial goal of a 50-day reserve. Since then,
under the new policy adopted in 1987 to increase the government's
share with a commensurate cut in private reserves, Japan has
maintained approximately a 140-day oil reserve in all (Nihon Enerugi
Keizai Kenkyu-jo 1993: 82).
Managing Tensions in U.S.-Japan Economic Relations
The economic and political implications of recurring tensions in U.S.-
Japan economic relations are both enormous and diverse. A full
examination of those consequences, therefore, is beyond the scope of
this analysis. Of central concern here is the potentially devastating
impact of those tensions on the central premise of Japan's postwar

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realism: the U.S.-Japan security relationship. Some of the outcomes of
conflictfor instance, the sharp rise in the value of the yenhave affected
Japan's economic interests adversely. But even then, maintaining a
good overall relationship with the United States was considered
crucial to Japan's basic interests. Therefore the pattern of Japan's
response has been to make concessions to the demands of the United
States in the end, albeit grudgingly, for the sake of healthy overall
relations.

The first significant case of friction was the textile dispute during the
Nixon administration; in that case Japan conceded by agreeing to
restrict Japanese exports. In the quarrels over steel and color
televisions in the late 1970s, disputes were settled by orderly
marketing agreements that constituted de facto voluntary export
restraints. In the automobile dispute in the early 1980s, Japan adopted
unilateral voluntary export restraints. Since then the focus of U.S.
demands has shifted from Japanese exports to the U.S. market to U.S.
exports to the Japanese market, and contentious issues have included
products in the agricultural and high-technology sectors, where the
United States has enjoyed comparative advantage. The U.S. demands
to liberalize beef and citrus markets, originally made in 1981, finally
prevailed in 1988. The semiconductor agreement, setting a numerical
target of a 20 percent share of foreign products in the Japanese
market, was concluded in 1986.
Since the late 1980s, reciprocity and Japan's domestic impediments to
import and foreign investment have become central concerns for the
United States. That concern was reflected in the Super 301 provision
of the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988, which
justified U.S. retaliations against trading partners that would not
"open" their markets to U.S. products. It was no secret that Japan was
the primary target. The items subject to negotiation with Japan
according to the Super 301 provision were supercomputers, satellites,
and wood products; by 1990, Japan had accepted the U.S. demands.
Then came the structural impediments initiative (SII) talks in 1989-90,
which attempted to rectify Japanese structural barriers in pricing,
public investment, distribution, the use of land, and more.
The dominant perception among Japanese decision makers and the
Japanese public regarding these negotiations is that they are
constantly making concessions to the United States. That this ever-
growing negative perception has not had a backlash effect on the
security dimension of the relationship indicates that the concession
approach has been effective and that the centrality of the U.S.-Japan
security relationship for Japanese postwar realism is accepted by the
majority of the Japanese policy makers and the public. In other words,
it is the strength of Japanese

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postwar realism that has motivated the Japanese to survive this series
of conflicts with the United States. Those who are tough on the United
States tend to be "nationalists" both in economic and general terms.
Approaches to Milieu Goals
To the extent that Japan's postwar realism limits its approach to
traditional security concerns, the relative importance of nontraditional
security in the policy agenda is augmented. In other words, the
Japanese government considers it crucial to promote security in
nontraditional domains in order to preserve the basic premises of
Japanese postwar realism. Also, in the post-Cold War context, where
fluidity and uncertainty are typical and a fundamental shift in security
environments is under way, the milieu goals of managing a stable
transition and maintaining peace and stability in a volatile security
environment are important in themselves. This post-Cold War reality
further contributes to Japan's energetic pursuit of milieu goals.
United Nations
In the mainstream thinking of the Japanese government, eagerness to
participate in the management of a new international order is the
central driving force in its bid for permanent membership in the U.N.
Security Council. According to Hisashi Owada, a senior official of the
Foreign Ministry and a chief promoter of the policy, its purpose is to
show Japan's determination "to assume a due responsibility in the
U.N. scheme to realize peace and prosperity in the post-Cold War
world" (Owada 1996: 97). According to another senior Foreign
Ministry official, a country like Japan that bears a huge financial
burden should have a permanent voice in U.N. decision making.
There are two notable arguments in Japan opposing the pursuit of
permanent membership in the U.N. Security Council. One position
argues that Japan should not volunteer for the post but should wait
until it is invited to become a member. The other contends that Japan
should not seek membership because it would mean assuming
responsibilities in the area of collective security, which is prohibited
by the Japanese constitution. In these domestic debates, the Foreign
Ministry's position is not necessarily a majority view and there is no
domestic consensus.
The Gulf Crisis and the Gulf War in 1990-91 became a turning point
in Japan's approach to U.N. peacekeeping operations. Japanese efforts
to contribute to the U.N.'s peacekeeping operations through
manpower (i.e., SDF participation) were sparked when Japan's
financial contribution of $13 billion did not receive due credit in the
international community (Inoguchi 1991; Purrington 1992). The
Japanese govern-

 Page 221
ment's policy on peacekeeping operations has been determined by two
opposing factors: the government's aspiration to discharge its
responsibility for international peace and stability through an active
contribution of manpower, on the one hand, and various political,
legal, and social constraints on its expanded security profile, on the
other.
Japan's Law Concerning Cooperation for United Nations
Peacekeeping Operations and Other Operations (commonly referred
to as the International Peace Cooperation Law), enacted in June 1992,
was illustrative of the policy shift. Under the law Japan may
participate in peacekeeping operations and humanitarian international
relief, including cease-fire monitoring, election monitoring, police
monitoring, medical care, assistance for disaster victims, transport,
and construction. Japan's participation in peacekeeping operations,
however, is bound by five conditions: agreement to a cease-fire
among conflicting parties should be in place; consent to the
deployment of peacekeeping operations and to Japan's participation
should be given by conflicting parties and concerned territorial states;
impartiality of the peacekeeping operations should be maintained;
upon violation of any of the preceding three requirements Japanese
activities should be suspended and Japanese troops should be
withdrawn; and use of weapons should be limited to actions necessary
to protect people's lives. The law also stipulates a freeze on the SDF's
participation in peacekeeping forces (as distinguished from
peacekeeping operations), which are defined to include cease-fire
operations, demobilization, and stationing and patrolling in buffer
zones between conflicting parties.
Cases of Japanese participation in peacekeeping operations since the
adoption of the International Peace Cooperation Law include the
United Nations Angola Verification Mission II (UNAVEMII) in 1992,
the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) in
1992-93, the United Nations Operation in Mozambique (ONUMOZ)
in 1993-95, the United Nations Observer Mission in El Salvador
(ONUSAL) in 1994, Rwanda refugee relief activities in 1994, and the
United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) in the
Golan Heights in 1995-96.
Multilateral and Bilateral Security Dialogue
In its policy toward regional political talks and security dialogue, the
Japanese government's initial thinking emphasized the flexible
application of ''multiplex" mechanisms involving effective use of
existing relationships and institutions for regional cooperation
(MOFA Japan 1992: 71-73). Out of this multiplex thinking developed
a two-track approach whose official version was enunciated by Prime
Minister Kiichi

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Miyazawa in 1992: on the one hand would be Japanese efforts toward
"the promotion of subregional cooperation to settle disputes and
conflicts"; on the other would be "regionwide political dialogue to
enhance the sense of mutual reassurance." The Japanese government's
initiative for ''political dialogue" was first articulated by Foreign
Minister Taro Nakayama in July 1991 at the ASEAN Post-Ministerial
Conference (PMC) in Kuala Lumpur. Nakayama expressed Japan's
willingness to participate in "political dialogue aiming at enhancing a
feeling of reassurance [anshin-kan] with each other" and proposed to
use the ASEAN PMC as a forum for the dialogue.
Behind Japan's interest in multilateral security dialogue was a mixed
motive of coping with the legacies of the past and taking part in the
creation of a stable security environment in the region. This balancing
element was manifest in Nakayama's proposal in 1991: in proposing
political dialogue at the ASEAN PMC, he referred to regional fears
about not only Japan's increasing political role but also its possible
military role in the future, thus hinting that widely held concerns
about Japan's regional role could be placed on the agenda of regional
political dialogue. Japan's interest in the Asia-Pacific multilateral
security dialogue was sustained also by its concerns about the future
roles of the United States and China. The 1993 Diplomatic Bluebook
stated that behind the region's increasing interest in political and
security dialogue were "common concerns about the U.S. military
presence and engagement in the future and the future roles of Japan
and China" (MOFA Japan 1994: 61). In sum, in the initial conception
of an approach emphasizing multilateral security dialogue by the
Japanese government, the central intention was twofold: to create a
forum for dispelling mutual distrust among nations in the Asia-Pacific
and to reengage major powers constructively in the transitional
process taking place in the regional security environment.
The United States was initially wary of Japanese intentions and their
possibly adverse impact on the U.S.-Japan security relationship. There
was fear that Japan might drift away from the United States. The
ASEAN countries, naturally cautious about external powers taking a
regional initiative, were also cool to the Japanese initiative.
Subsequently the idea of political dialogue was promoted by ASEAN
as an ASEAN initiative, culminating in the first ASEAN Regional
Forum convened in Bangkok in July 1994. The Japanese approach
was then readjusted: it now emphasized the importance of a regional
security dialogue as a supplement to the U.S.-Japan security
relationship. Today the Japanese government expects the regional
forum to function also as a mechanism for regional confidence-
building, pushing in particular for increased transparency in the
security policies of the region's countries.

 Page 223
In parallel with a multilateral dialogue, bilateral confidence-building
measures have been promoted by the Japanese government: personal
exchanges such as high-level state visits and official policy dialogues;
troop exchanges including port calls and exchanges of military
observers; and other activities including information exchanges to
increase military transparency and agreements to prevent incidents.
Japan's primary targets of bilateral confidence-building in recent years
have been Russia, China, and South Korea.

6Through these efforts the Japanese authorities expect to increase the

military transparency of those countries, grasp their political and
military trends, enhance their understanding of Japanese defense
policy, exchange mutual perceptions on regional security
environments, and stabilize bilateral relations.

Aside from semigovernmental exchanges such as contacts between

defense researchers, Japan and Russia held security policy planning
talks in June 1992, February 1994, and July 1995, sponsored by the
two foreign ministries and attended by the defense authorities. In May
1993, an Agreement on the Prevention of Incidents at Sea was signed
at the occasion of Boris Yeltsin's visit to Tokyo. The agreement
provided for annual meetings among policy planners to oversee its
implementation. In April 1996, the director general of Japan's Defense
Agency (JDA), Hideo Usui, visited Russia for the first time as head of
JDA, agreeing with the Russian minister of defense to promote
security dialogue and defense exchanges as confidence-building
measures. In August 1996, Japan's Maritime SDF paid a port call to
Vladivostok for the first time.
As for Japan and China, the first bilateral security dialogue was held
in December 1993 between the two foreign ministries. That exchange
was followed by a security dialogue between the two defense
authorities in March 1994. The third security dialogue, held in January
1995, was attended jointly by the ministries of foreign affairs and
defense; it was followed by a fourth security dialogue in January
1996.
The director general of JDA visited South Korea in 1979, 1990, and
1995; South Korea's defense minister visited Japan in 1994 and 1996.
Annual policy planning talks between the two countries began in
November 1994, followed by a second round of talks in June 1995.
South Korea's navy paid a port call to Japan for the first time in
December 1994, a visit returned by Japan's Maritime SDF in
September 1996.
Political Use of Official Development Assistance
The first explicit use of official development assistance for strategic
purposes took the form of grants to Pakistan and Turkey after the
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. Those grants have
been referred to as "strategic aid" (Yasutomo 1986). In 1980, the
Japanese

 Page 224
government decided to double its assistance to Pakistan and to extend
a major aid package to Turkey (Orr 1990: 111). Although these
policies were carried out at the encouragement of the United States,
Japan did in fact embark on a new ODA policy for the purpose of
stabilizing the security environment. Moreover, justifying the use of
ODA for strategic purposes shared with the United States meant that
ODA had now become a tool for consolidating the alliance with the
United States.
The new Southeast Asian policy announced in August 1977 by Prime
Minister Takeo Fukuda, which came to be known as the Fukuda
Doctrine, was an earlier instance of a Japanese attempt to use
economic assistance in support of political and security objectives.
The focus in this case was Southeast Asia; the stated policy objective
was to serve as a bridge between ASEAN and Indochina and thus to
bring about greater stability in Southeast Asia by encouraging
peaceful coexistence between the two. Southeast Asia was regarded as
an important region: not only did its geographical location render it
capable of threatening Japan's vital sea lanes, but it was an important
supplier of natural resources as well as an import and export market
(Soeya 1997). Of course, the use of ODA was bound to become
ineffective wherever military conflict came to the fore. The Fukuda
Doctrine, therefore, was frustrated when Vietnam invaded Cambodia
in late 1978. The thinking that informed the Fukuda Doctrine,
however, has been reinvigorated in the post-Cold War era. The end of
the Cambodian conflict with the Paris Peace Accords of October 1991
led Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, in January 1993, to call for the
establishment of a "Forum for Comprehensive Development of
Indochina" as a concrete step to implement the Fukuda Doctrine.

7
In the post-Cold War era, ODA came to be regarded as an effective
means to cope with global issues. The ODA Charter, adopted in 1992,
represents some of the principles promoting the pursuit of such goals:
development and environmental conservation should be pursued in
tandem; any use of ODA for military purposes or for aggravation of
international conflicts should be avoided; full attention should be paid
to trends in recipient countries' military expenditures, their
development and production of weapons of mass destruction and
missiles, and their export and import of arms; full attention should be
paid to recipient countries' efforts to promote democratization and a
market-oriented economy as well as to secure basic human rights and
freedom for their citizens (MOFA Japan 1994: 94). The objective of
using ODA for such political and security purposes is "positive
linkage"encouraging and rewarding the positive records of recipient
countriesrather than the "negative linkage" of punishing negative
records.
Among those global issues, the Japanese government now devotes

 Page 225
most attention to the world environment: in 1992 Japan committed to
spend 900 billion to 1 trillion yen on environment-related ODA over
five years beginning in 1992; it dispensed 500 billion yen over the
twoyear period from 1992 to 1993. Environmental conservation is
now a central consideration in Japan's ODA to China, where 15 of the
40 projects adopted for the first three years (fiscal 1996-98) of the
fourth yen loan to China were devoted to environmental conservation
(Hirabayashi 1995). With respect to other terms of the ODA Charter,
the effects are harder to ascertain, although the Japanese government
has stated its determination to uphold the charter's principles.
Approaches to Domestic Security
In the absence of imminent threats and amid lingering skepticism
about government power in postwar Japan, for a long time domestic
security was the most neglected area of national security. The
Comprehensive Security Strategy Report of 1980 was the first serious
attempt to address the question of domestic security. It recommended
a comprehensive approach to severe earthquakes, addressing such
areas as prediction techniques, city planning, transportation policy,
community policy, and the crisis management capacity of the national
and local governments (Sogo-anzenhosho Kenkyu-group 1980: 79-
83). Since then there has been an increasing awareness of the issue,
and central and local governments have begun preparations such as
stockpiling emergency food and holding regular drills.
The 1995 Hanshin earthquake, however, exposed serious
shortcomings in the government's disaster plans. The prefectural
government of Hyogo, for example, had not prepared a manual or
conducted exercises regarding cooperation with the SDF in disaster
relief. Indeed, many local governments, including that of Hyogo
prefecture, in the dominant public spirit of pacifism, have been
extremely reluctant to establish a working relationship with the SDF.
The 1995 earthquake, which claimed the lives of more than 6,000
citizens, also brought into relief several major defects in the Japanese
crisis management system, including the process of gathering and
assimilating information in a crisis and the question of political
leadership.
Accordingly, New Taiko, adopted in November 1995, emphasized the
necessity of preparation for "large-scale disasters which can have a
significant impact on our highly developed and diversified society"
and called for a larger role for the SDF. New Taiko also emphasized
the need to prepare for "disasters caused by acts of terrorism or other
events which require the protection of lives or assets." As an approach
to these new security concerns, it states that "Japan's defense
capability [should]

 Page 226
be reconstructed, both in scale and function, by streamlining, making
it more efficient and compact, as well as enhancing necessary
functions and making qualitative improvements to be able to
effectively respond to a variety of situations."
Explaining Japanese Security
We have seen that since the end of World War II Japan has ceased to
seek the status of a traditional great power. Its mercantilist economic
behavior, which concerns neorealists such as Kenneth Waltz, was
basically the product of a catch-up mentality and a deep sense of
economic vulnerability, not an indication that Japan sought to control
the world economy. Waltz says that a national choice is constrained
by systemic and structural factors, however, and predicts that Japan
might even go nuclear because of the structural pressures. In the
1970s, when such structural pressures became real because of the
decline in U.S. hegemony, the deep sense of vulnerability and the
need to function in an increasingly interdependent world became even
greater concerns in the minds of Japanese policy makers. No
responsible decision maker in postwar Japan has ever attempted to
convert accumulated economic wealth into military might.
The Impact of Systemic Imperatives
The nature of Japan as a power in the structure of international politics
is closer to a "civilian power" than to a nuclear Japan. Hanns Maull
argues that "international relations are not just undergoing a
reshuffling of power hierarchies, but a sea change affecting both the
structure and substance of international politics." He believes that
Japan, like Germany, is a prototype of a "civilian power" in the world
of interdependence (Maull 1990-91: 92). In the same vein, Yoichi
Funabashi contends that Japan's unorthodox power portfolio "presents
Japan with the opportunity to define its own power and role in the
radically changing world ahead. Emergence of a more internationalist
and actively engaged Japanese pacifism could play a constructive role
in making Japan a global civilian power" (Funabashi 1991-92: 65).
Both Maull and Funabashi see the importance of the U.S.-Japan
relationship for Japan's status as a successful civilian power. The
image of a civilian power is one that better suits Japanese postwar
realism, given Japan's commitment to the U.S.-Japan alliance and to
military self-restraint.
The neorealist prediction that Japan will reemerge as an independent
military power is tantamount to the prediction that the U.S.-Japan
security alliance will be terminated as a result of structural pressures.
As

 Page 227
the foregoing analysis has shown, however, there is no sign that either
the Japanese government or the U.S. administration wishes to end the
relationship. Moreover, conscious wishes aside, a new structural
pressure in Asiathe emergence of China as a structural pole in a new
regional systemmay move the United States and Japan even closer to
each other. There is no indication that Japan is likely to emerge as an
independent structural pole comparable to China. The only viable
alternative for Japan, even if China becomes a threat, continues to be
the alliance with the United States.
From the standpoint of U.S. interests, too, "there is no need to assume
that international pressures inevitably dictate that Japanese leaders
must become military realists." Even if an independent Japan were to
behave within the confines of the U.S. strategy, "it is difficult to think
of a U.S. interest in the balance of power that would be served, unless
Washington withdraws from the region and relies on Tokyo as its
proxy" (Betts 1993-94: 57). Whether Japan's nonnuclear principles
will survive the structural pressures that Waltz discusses may also
depend on the fate of the U.S.-Japan security alliance. The strength of
Japan's norm of pacifism, however, suggests that Japan will continue
to rely on the United States for a nuclear umbrellaa policy that is
reassuring for the entire region, including China, as well as for the
United States.
These arguments, however, do not necessarily suggest that the U.S.-
Japan security alliance is certain to be maintained in the coming years.
It is commonly understood among experts today that the future of the
alliance will depend as much on the intentions of the United States as
on those of Japan (Tsuchiyama 1993: 70-71). This raises a central
question: Are U.S. intentions a product of structural imperatives or a
result of domestic and identity factors including isolationist legacies?
U.S. responses that grow out of its domestic and identity factorswhich
many fear will occurare beyond anyone's control and moreover do not
fit with the realist theory. The U.S.-Japan alliance is certainly not
immune to the structural pressures of a changing international order,
but Tokyo and Washington are still in full agreement that the alliance
will contribute to stability in a shifting world order in which the
United States is expected to function as primary leader. Inoguchi
(1988-89), pointing to this same expectation, argues that "Pax
Americana II" will continue for the short-term future if not forever.
In summary, there are strong indications that the impact of systemic
imperatives on Japan's security conception and policy has not
weakened the basis of Japanese postwar realism; those imperatives
have instead impelled Japanese decision makers to consolidate the
U.S.-Japan alliance while seeking a new international role in
nontraditional security domains

 Page 228
that will not require major modification of Japan's policy of military
self-restraint.
Domestic and Identity Factors
Japan's conception of security is fundamentally affected by domestic
constraints and identity factors. In this regard the application of a
constructivist perspective to Japanese security policy offers useful
insights (Katzenstein and Okawara 1993). In the post-Cold War
context there are important questions to be explored: how are such
internal factors changing, and what impact will they have on Japanese
security thinking and behavior in the future?
Domestic Constraints
Domestic political and other constraints on Japan's security policy in
the conventional military realm have been strong throughout the
postwar years. These constraints operate at three levels: constitutional
and legal constraints; public opinion; and the polarization and
immobility of domestic politics over the issue of military security.
These constraints are all reinforced by the social norm of pacifism and
the political culture of antimilitarism.
The culture of antimilitarism is a reflection of how the Japanese in
general regarded the war experience: the majority of Japanese felt
victimized by their own military. The central theme in the Japanese
discourse on the causes of the war, therefore, has been how the
military came to power in an "irresponsible" domestic political system
where there were no effective checks and balances against the
military. According to Thomas Berger (1993: 137), "The negative
view of the military is shared all along the political spectrum in
postwar Japan. Where these groups differ, however, is in how they
propose to prevent the military from becoming a danger again." Under
the 1955 regimewhich was characterized by an LDP monopoly of
power and by the constant failure of the oppositions to form a
governmentthe opposition parties, the national teachers union, and
major newspapers and journals became strong supporters of the
antimilitarist spirit. Their efforts to prevent the "remilitarization" of
Japan were concentrated mainly on staying strictly true to the intent of
Article 9 of the constitution. These constraints were important factors
in determining the scope of Japan's military security and the country's
approach to it. First, the scope of military security in Japan became
restricted to areas relevant for self-defense. The Japanese government
stipulated three conditions that would permit the use of self-defense:
the existence of an imminent and wrongful aggression

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against Japan; the lack of other means to dispel it; and the minimum
use of force if justified according to those two conditions.

The mission of the U.S.-Japan security relationship was also

understood to be limited to "the security of Japan and the maintenance
of international peace and security in the Far East."9The Japanese
government's interpretation has been that Japan can contribute to the
maintenance of international peace and security in the Far East to the
extent that it has a bearing on Japan's self-defense.10Still, the effective
management of the U.S.-Japan security arrangements has to address
the question of collective defense. The current government's
interpretation of the constitutional constraints, however, does not
recognize the right of collective defense. The Japanese government's
official stance on collective defense, clarified in May 1981, is as
follows: "It is natural that Japan, being a sovereign state, should have
this right of collective defense from the standpoint of international
law. The government, however, interprets that the right of self-defense
permitted under Article 9 of the constitution should be used within the
minimum range of need to defend Japan, and believes that the
exercise of the right of collective defense exceeds the range and thus
is not allowed constitutionally" (Boei Handbook 1995: 417-18).
Legally speaking, therefore, joint military actions between the United
States and Japan are allowed only in situations where armed attacks or
threats are interpreted to justify Japan's self-defense.
It was in this context that the cabinet secretary issued a statement
upon the release of New Taiko emphasizing that "there is no change in
the previous interpretation of the government on items prohibited by
the constitution such as the right of collective defense" and stating that
the expression "in achieving peace and stability in the surrounding
region of Japan" in the section on U.S.-Japan security arrangements
does not entail a change in the government's understanding on the
range of the "Far East" stipulated in the treaty. In sum, then, the
revision of Taiko and the "reaffirmation" of the U.S.-Japan alliance
were attempts to broaden the scope of Japan's security and define
Japan's new approaches at a time of uncertain transition without
violating the constitutional constraints or contradicting the previous
security and defense policies of the Japanese government. This new
"activism'' of the Japanese government, therefore, was the direct result
of compromise over domestic constraints and identity factors.
New Domestic Developments
In recent years there have been signs that the domestic tension over
traditional security has begun to ease and that a new set of questions is

 Page 230
emerging. The Socialist Party (formally the Social Democratic Party,
SDP), the largest opposition under the 1955 regime, reversed its
stance on basic security policy with the ascendance of its leader,
Tomiichi Murayama, to prime minister in June 1994. The party's
current position is that the SDF is constitutional, and it supports the
U.S.-Japan security treaty. The SDP also supports Japan's
participation in the U.N.'s peacekeeping operations, a policy it
vehemently opposed in 1992 when the peacekeeping bill was passed
in the Diet. It is, however, still against Japan's taking part in the U.N.'s
Peacekeeping Force (PKF), which could use force in carrying out its
mission.
Indeed, the most important development among the recent political
changes is the absolute decline of the SDP's influence in the Japanese
political process and system.

11 The coalition between the LDP and SDParchrivals during the Cold
Warin June 1994 was a marriage of convenience between two losers
in the summer 1993 elections in a desperate attempt to survive this
period of massive political transition. Further reshuffling within and
among political parties is likely in the coming years. These
developments have made it possible to talk about reviewing the peace
constitutiona subject that was politically taboo when the SDP was a
strong opposition party. That review will have a significant impact on
Japan's security conception and policy in coming years.

Reflecting the more tolerant mood, the Yomiuri Shinbun (Japan's most
widely read newspaper, with a circulation often million) has begun to
advocate revision of the peace constitution. On November 3, 1994, it
devoted four full pages to its own proposed revision.12Like the
current constitution, the Yomiuri proposal does not recognize "the
threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes." It
does, however, clarify the constitutionality of the SDF by clearly
stating that "Japan shall form an organization for self-defense to
secure its peace and independence and to maintain its safety." Further,
the proposal states that "in case of need, it may dispatch public
officials and provide a part of its self-defense organization for the
maintenance and promotion of peace and for humanitarian support
activities.'' The central rationale for this proposed revision of the
constitution was clearly to remove sources of unproductive domestic
conflict in order to allow the SDF's active participation in the
maintenance of international peace within the confines of Japanese
postwar realism. This basic motive is also increasingly shared by the
general public.
According to the Yomiuri polls since 1986, the percentage of those in
favor of the revision more than doubled from 22.6 percent in 1986 to
50.4 percent in 1995. Conversely, the percentage of those who oppose

 Page 231
the revision dropped from 56.6 percent to 30.9 percent in the same
period.

13Regarding the reasons for supporting the revision, "[the current

constitution] hinders [Japan's] international contribution" was selected
by 56.9 percent of those in favor of the revision in the 1995 poll.

It was in this tolerant atmosphere that the revision of Taiko was

debated in late 1995. The LDP proposed to reconsider the question of
collective security and defense. In its counterproposal to the draft
revision of Taiko, it asserted that "the argument should be deepened
concerning collective security at the United Nations and the right of
collective defense" (Policy Affairs Research Council 1995).
Nonetheless, domestic resistance from the SDP and other
"progressive" politicians and the mass media was not insignificant:
they voiced a typical concern about a possible expansion of the
regional range of the Far East as covered by Article 6 of the U.S.-
Japan security treaty. In the foreseeable future, therefore, the
expansion of Japan's security role will probably occur only through
reinterpretations of the constitutional constraints. Although the more
tolerant public mood suggests that the range of reinterpretation will
widen, the fundamental strength of resistance suggests that any
attempt at substantive change will continue to be politically
controversial.
The Evolution of Postwar Realism
The Japanese conception of security shows that domestic factors
complicate the impact of the international security structure. This does
not mean that elements of realism and neorealism are not important; it
does suggest that they do not necessarily affect security in the way an
abstract theory would predict. The domestic factors that shaped
Japan's postwar security conception and policy are a direct result of
the Japanese prewar experiences. Indeed, the central decision makers
of postwar Japan have made that history a central reference point in
their articulation of security issues. Consequently, Japan has a dual
identity with respect to security: that of a potential great power
capable of affecting the international security structure, and that of a
self-restraining state. The U.S.-Japan security treaty has been the
primary mechanism through which Japan has reconciled its traditional
security concerns with the predominant social norm of pacifism and
the political culture of antimilitarism. To live with both realities has
been the government's choiceand that choice, I have argued,
constitutes Japanese realism in the postwar context.
The development of Japan's postwar realism can be summarized
roughly in terms of three time periods. In the first period, at the height

 Page 232
of the Cold War in the 1950s and 1960s, Yoshida's decision to sign
the U.S.-Japan security treaty and to refrain from rearmament beyond
the minimum needed for self-defense, known as the Yoshida
Doctrine, proved highly effective in securing a favorable environment
for economic recovery, the top national priority at the time. Hayato
Ikeda's policy of keeping a low political profile and concentrating on
economic development in the early 1960s also proved conducive to
double-digit growth throughout the 1960s. Under these circumstances,
Japan's security was treated primarily as a matter of domestic politics.
The dominant Pax Americana obscured the direct link between
Japanese security and regional security. The relevance of the U.S.-
Japan security arrangements (as well as of the SDF) was debated
almost exclusively from the viewpoint of their constitutionality and in
terms of whether the security relationship would involve Japan in
international military conflict.
The decline of the Pax Americana, foreshadowed in the new
diplomacy of U.S. President Richard Nixon in the early 1970s,
however, shook the basis of Japan's postwar realism. Japan's
fundamental wish at that juncture was to preserve the premises of its
postwar realism under the new circumstances. Its efforts to do so
evolved in two dimensions. First, the Japanese government began, for
the first time in the postwar years, to conceptualize an organic
relationship between Japan's self-defense efforts and the mission of
the U.S.-Japan security relationship. Increased self-defense efforts by
Japan, for example, came to be regarded as important not only as
evidence of its willingness to share the security burden with the
United States but also as a demonstration of Japan's determination to
sustain the U.S.-Japan security relationship. Second, in the eyes of
Japanese policy makers, the decline of the Pax Americana augmented
the importance of economic security. A stable international economic
system was no longer a given. Moreover, the economic tensions made
the management of the U.S.-Japan relationship a sensitive issue with
significant implications for the security alliance and thus for the
viability of Japan's postwar realism. Japan's repeated concessions to
U.S. economic demands, however reluctant, were testimony to the
government's ultimate determination to protect its postwar realism
based on its dual identity.
In the post-Cold War period, the scope of Japan's security has
expanded even further. Today it includes the goal of maintaining
international peace and stability as well as global issues such as the
environment and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. To
the extent that the Japanese government is bound by a postwar realism
that constrains it from assuming an independent role in the handling
of

 Page 233
traditional security needs, the importance of nontraditional milieu
goals for international peace and stability is augmented in two
respects. First, these nontraditional security issues are becoming
significant in their own right in a new post-Cold War security
environment, and it is politically easier for the Japanese government
to devote resources to these new security goals than to more
traditional ones. Second, devotion to nontraditional security is
considered important for protecting the premises of postwar realism:
such devotion functions as a compensation for self-restraint in
traditional security and is expected to address the "free ride" criticism
often directed against Japan.
At the same time, new traditional security needs are emerging in the
post-Cold War context. Emphasis on the importance of the U.S.-Japan
alliance is thus increasing in the post-Cold War era, and the
government has not attempted to revise Article 9 of the constitution.
When constitutional revisions have been proposed, such as the one
advanced by the Yomiuri Shinbun in 1994, their predominant aim has
been to lay the domestic political groundwork for the promotion of
Japan's active participation in the maintenance of international peace
and stability. But even this type of constitutional revision continues to
be regarded as politically unfeasible.
It is likely, therefore, that domestic and identity factors, reinforced by
the reaffirmed U.S.-Japan alliance, will continue to compel the
Japanese to seek a higher international profile in nontraditional
aspects of security in the post-Cold War era. The strengthening of
Japan's security posture is likely to take the form of an expansion of
the framework of Japanese postwar realismand both the reaffirmed
U.S.-Japan security alliance and Japan's commitment to security goals
outside the domain of that alliance will continue to be integral parts of
that framework.


 Page 234

NORTHEAST ASIA

6
North Korea
Deterrence Through Danger
David Kang
War can only be prevented if you will fight and keep a strong stance. If a
bully sees you preparing for a fight by running and working out, he will think
differently. You must prepare for war in order to gain peace.
CHUN DOO HWAN
We will destroy Seoul in a sea of fire, like a rabid dog barking at the sky,
unaware of the fate about to befall it.
PARKYONG-SU, quoted in Vantage Point 17, no. 3 (1994): 13

In the past few years, as the nuclear "crisis" on the peninsula has
intensified, the major policy debates in South Korea (the ROK) and
the West have focused on whether to appease or contain North Korean
(the DPRK) (Park 1994-95; Bracken 1993; Bailey 1994).

1 Yet this debate, carried on with great vigor by proponents of both

camps, presupposes a prior condition: that we understand what drives
North Korea's foreign policy. Questions over whether the North will
attack the South, whether the North Koreans can be expected to live
up to their international agreements, whether it is possible to negotiate
with themall depend upon assumptions about North Korea's
conception of security and about how North Korea pursues its foreign
policy goals.
The generally accepted view regards the North Koreans as intractable,
dangerous, bent on destruction and invasion. In this view North

 Page 235
Korean foreign policy is dominated by personality and perception and
can be erratic, violent, and irrational.

2Scholars with such views write that North Korean foreign policy is
"erratic and periodically violent" (Taylor and Mazarr 1992: 152),
"logic-defying" (Koh 1988: 384), and prone to "inexplicable spasms
of violence" (Perry 1990: 186). Yet almost all theories of war in the
literature on international relations conclude that a stronger power is
more threatening than a weaker power. Similarly, theories of
deterrence and stability point out that the stronger a nation, the more
likely it is to deter a weaker power. Even the underlying logic in
"preponderance-of-power'' theories of stability relies on the notion
that the stronger power will not need to fight and the weaker power
will not want to fight.

This juxtaposition of theories of international relations with our

conception of North Korea leads to a puzzle: these theories would
lead one to believe that not only should North Korea be deterred from
attacking South Korea, but in fact it should fear an attack by the
South. Yet our dominant conception of North Korea is that of an
aggressive, dangerous state that wants to attack the South, which is on
the defensive. Are our theories of international relations wrong? Can
they not account for the behavior of an "outlier" country? Or is the
general wisdom on North Korea in need of updating? In this chapter I
argue that theories of international relationswith modificationscan
easily explain the North Korean case. I will show that North Korea's
actions, when viewed through a methodological lens that focuses on
consistency of argument and the search for contrary evidence, are
consistent with our general conception of international relations.
Essentially, both North and South Korea are mired in a zero-sum
battle for the Korean nation. An almost total absence of linguistic,
ethnic, and religious cleavages leaves no simple way to "divide the
pie" on the Korean peninsula, and the relatively constricted
geographic situation, lacking natural barriers to inhibit conflict,
intensifies an already acute security dilemma between the two sides.
The result is unsurprising: each side views the other as a dangerous
and illegitimate state with which compromise is tantamount to
surrender.3The ongoing contest has far-reaching political, economic,
and social consequences.
The most important question for determining North Korea's
conception of security is whether or not the North has genuine
external security concerns. If North Korea truly has no basis for fear,
then either its foreign policies are terribly misguided, through some
sort of irrationality or paranoia, or it is pursuing some internal strategy
through the cynical and cunning creation of a false external threat. In
either case, if there is no genuine external security concern then North
Korea's true

 Page 236
conception of security must be something other than defensive. If the
North does have a genuine fear of South Korea or of the United
States, however, its actions become comprehensible.
The underlying theoretical question is how to assess the inherent
disposition and goals of a nation. One way of going about this is to
ask how nations assess their security. Here I begin the preliminary
work of such a task by asking three main questions. First, how does a
nation assess its external situation and when does it feel threatened?
Second, is North Korea's conception of security offensive or
defensive? Finally, does North Korea's policy derive from its external
situation, or is it driven by considerations of internal domestic
control?
I contend that North Korea's foreign policy is based on a mixture of
fear and opportunism and that North Korea's conception of security is
overwhelmingly concentrated on its external relations, in particular
with South Korea. More important than underlying notions of a
country's fixed intentions is an understanding of how intentions
change with altered circumstances. Dividing the history of North
Korea's foreign policy into three broad eraspredominance, decline,
and povertyI argue that although North Korea invaded the South 45
years ago, it is highly unlikely that North Korea currently retains such
aggressive intentions in any serious way. I will also show that
although North Korea is an outlier state in a fairly unique situation, its
foreign policy responses have been relatively predictable. Because of
North Korea's position in the world, it is not surprising that North
Korea does not behave like Belgium or like Mexico. North Korea is in
an extreme international position: situated on the front lines of the
Cold War, at the intersection of the interests of four major powers
(China, Russia, Japan, and the United States), North Korea has existed
in a more tense situation than most nations. Even today North Korea
remains in the same structural position. Thus it should not be
surprising that North Korea's international behavior has been different
than that of "normal" countries far from the front lines of geopolitical
struggle.
This chapter is divided into five sections. The first section examines
theories in international relations that try to explain the sources of
external threats and draws out implications for the study of North
Korea. In the second section I divide North Korean history into three
periodspredominance, decline, and povertyand trace how this
structural shift has affected North Korean foreign policy. The third
section focuses on the Kim dynasty and foreign policy. The fourth
section discusses "observational equivalence" and military doctrine. In
the final section I discuss North Korea's security preferences.

 Page 237

Sources of External Threats

In this section I derive hypotheses from general theories of
international relations that might illuminate how North Korea assesses
its external security situation. In so doing I examine two central
questions in international relations: war initiation and stability.
I begin my review of the literature with neorealist, or structural,
theories of international relations. Structural theory begins with the
standard assumptions: states are unitary actors concerned with
survival; the international arena is ordered on the principle of anarchy
and is hence a self-help system (Waltz 1979; Mearsheimer 1990; Walt
1985; Morgenthau 1967). Structural realist approaches do not peer
into the domestic decision-making structure; the locus of explanation
resides in the power positions of states in the international system. Yet
within these approaches there is disagreement over whether a balance
of power is more stable than a preponderance of power.
For Kenneth Waltz the source of threats is clear: power is threatening.
Waltz (1993: 74) writes: "Balance of power theory leads one to expect
that states, if they are free to do so, will flock to the weaker side. The
stronger, not the weaker side, threatens them....Even if the powerful
state's intentions are wholly benign, less powerful states will...
interpret events differently." Because states are concerned primarily
with their own survival, as well as their relative power, there always
exists the possibility that a strong nation may decide to begin
hostilities with a weaker nation. In other words, "parity preserves
peace" (Paul 1994: 5). Thus a potential aggressor will not initiate a
conflict if it cannot win. In this sense threats arise by the mere
presence of capabilities, and thus intentions can always change for the
worse (Niou and Ordeshook 1984; Layne 1993). As Robert Jervis
(1978: 105) writes, ''minds can be changed, new leaders can come to
power, values can shift, new opportunities and dangers can arise."
Even if a nation was peaceful when it was weak, changes in power
can bring changes in goals. Examining great powers, Robert Gilpin
(1981: 95) writes that "rising power leads to increasing ambition.
Rising powers seek to enhance their security by increasing their
capabilities and their control over the external environment." In this
sense neorealism does not take intentions as fixed but allows that they
respond to changes in capabilities. The obverse of Gilpin's argument
is that as a nation's capabilities fall behind, as it grows relatively
weaker, its fears about the external environment will increase, its
ambitions will lessen, and its perception of external threat will rise.

 Page 238
But another school of thought argues that preponderant capabilities in
one country will lead to stability. In such a case the stronger power
will not need to fight, and the weaker country will not consider it. As
A. F. K. Organski (1968: 294) argues, "a preponderance of power...
increases the chances of peace, for the greatly stronger side need not
fight at all to get what it wants, while the weaker side would be
plainly foolish to attempt battle for what it wants." Thus structural
theories lead to three clear predictions:
· Hypothesis 1: Preponderant capabilities make a state appear
threatening to weaker nations regardless of intentions.
· Hypothesis 2: Intentions are not fixed, but follow changes in
capabilities.
· Hypothesis 3: Only the stronger state threatens stability.
The Security Dilemma
The security dilemma occurs because even if state A knows that it is a
pacifist state, because of the anarchic international order A can never
be sure that B is also peaceful. Therefore A must prepare for war even
while professing peace. State B in response must arm against A's
behavior, and the security dilemma results. Without examining the
internal attributes of nations, we expect that two countries locked in a
high-threat situation will each perceive the other side as the aggressor
and accordingly worry about the relative power of the opposing state
(Grieco 1988; Snidal 1991; Powell 1991; Waltz 1979). This theory
can be extended to include variables to which I have previously
alluded: whether the offense or the defense has the advantage and
whether an offensive posture is distinguishable from a defensive
posture. Robert Jervis (1978: 211) argues that when the offense has
the advantage and offensive postures are indistinguishable from
defensive ones, "there is no way to get security without menacing
others, and security through defense is terribly difficult to obtain.
Status-quo states acquire the same kind of arms that are sought by
aggressors...and attacking is the best route to defending what you
have....Arms races are likely [and] cooperation will be extremely hard
to achieve."
The security dilemma thus predicts an action-reaction effect whereby
North and South Korea are caught in a circular web of responding to
the other side. We expect that both the North and the South will be
extremely concerned with the other state and will react accordingly. In
such a zero-sum environment even minor actions will be

 Page 239
magnified, provoking a response from the other side. This effect is
summarized in a fourth hypothesis.
· Hypothesis 4: When the offense has the advantage and mistrust is
high, nations will appear threatening to each other.
Domestic Politics and Internal Threats
Recently there has been a spate of work dealing with internal threats
and Third World security (David 1991; Ayoob 1991). Positing that
states will at times undertake foreign policies designed to counter
internal threats, these studies have called for recognition that the
"search for security" in Third World countries may be focused on both
external and internal threats. Manufacturing a false external threat
provides many benefits for the leaders. First, they can mobilize public
support for the regime against the external threat. This is the well-
known "rally around the flag" phenomenon (Levy 1988). Second, an
external threat can be used to legitimize domestic authoritarian
measures such as abrogation of civil rights and repression. Justified in
the name of "national security," such measures can strengthen a weak
regime against domestic uprisings. Finally, an external threat justifies
the elimination of domestic political rivals. By linking domestic
competitors with an external threat, a regime can harass or even
destroy its domestic opposition. The problem is that the domestic
sources of a manipulated threat can coexist with the external reality of
a threat, thus making it difficult to distinguish between ultimate
causes.
· Hypothesis 5: The less the internal cohesion, the more likely the
ruler will create and use a perceived threat to bolster the regime's
domestic control.
Beginning with these five hypotheses we can examine the situation on
the Korean peninsula.
A Note on Methodology
As I will show later in this chapter, many of the empirical situations
on the peninsula are observationally equivalentthat is, North Korean
actions in those situations would be the same whether their
fundamental goals were offensive or defensive. If this is the case,
there is little value in producing a list of reasons why those behaviors
are offensive or defensive. The analyst must therefore produce
alternative hypotheses that will point to different empirical
observations.
Given that deriving testable propositions about the "true" nature of
external threats from a structural view is less than helpful, the next

 Page 240
logical step is to pursue the creation of alternative propositions that
will eventually result in a dichotomous prediction in the dependent
variable. That is, if both an offensive and defensive North Korea will
deploy its troops forward, search for allies, and pursue a divisive
strategy toward the South, it is not possible on the basis of these
observations to conclude that North Korea's internal posture is either
offensive or defensive. We must therefore look for demonstrations of
intent that will provide us with some clues. Under what circumstances
will the manifestations of an offensive and a defensive orientation
differ?
Moreover, explanations for North Korea's actions, or surmises about
its intentions, cannot be made in isolation. Scholars often attempt to
explain one course of action without explaining why other alternatives
were not chosen. This tendency truncates the dependent variable and
makes causal inference more difficult. That is, if we want to explain
why a nation seeks allies to strengthen its security, we are also
explaining, implicitly or explicitly, why that nation did not choose to
pursue unilateral attempts to increase its power, take colonies as
buffer states, or go to war. A thorough explanation must examine the
full range of strategies available and present convincing evidence why
one path was chosen over the others (Morrow 1993; Lake 1996).
Finally, it is significant to point out the options that North Korea did
not choose during the last 40 years. One can imagine three broad
strategies the North could have pursued: invasion of South Korea; a
"holding pattern" with minimal change in foreign policy but without
provocation of war; and reform. North Korea has generally followed
the second of these three options, while making limited moves to open
its economy to the outside. Thus those who argue that North Korea's
underlying goal is to communize the South must explain how those
intentions have led to actions that seem antithetical to such a purpose.
Overview of the Situation
The zero-sum contest for the "Korean nation," broadly defined, makes
it inevitable that each side perceives the other as the aggressor, as
destabilizing, and as illegitimate. Thus, although the North may have
been preeminent in the early years after the war, as the South caught
up and passed the North we could expect to see its security become
more and more threatened. North Korea's history after the division can
be divided into roughly three periods: predominance, decline, and
poverty.
The situation on the Korean peninsula is a result of external forces
dividing the peninsula. Both North and South Korea have fought a
battle for legitimacy for the last 45 years. That contest and each side's

 Page 241
concern about the other side's potential capabilities have spurred
economic development on both sides of the border, altered the
political landscape of both countries, and affected their relations with
external powers (Koh 1992; Yang et al. 1990; Foot 1985; Acheson
1969; Cumings 1990; Goncharov, Lewis, and Litai 1993; Suh 1968,
1988). Table 3 shows estimates of GNP growth in North and South
Korea since the signing of the armistice in 1953. Between 1953 and
1960, North Korea's GNP actually closed the gap with the South; in
per capita income, the North remained ahead of the South into the
1970s.
Neorealist or structural views of North Korea point clearly to the
conclusion that its situation will be defensive. Even if at one time
North Korea was in a position of strength and may have considered a
more aggressive strategy relative to the South, today the North is
unambiguously weak. The previous decade has evinced broad changes
in North Korea's international position: attempts at rapprochement
with Japan, admission to the United Nations, the loss of powerful
patrons, and the nuclear weapons crisis of the early 1990s.
TABLE 3
North and South Korea's Gross National Product and Per Capita
Gross National Product
GNP GNP per capita
(billions of U.S. dollars) (U.S. dollars)
Year North South North South
1953 0.44 1.35 58 76
1960 1.52 1.95 137 94
1965 2.30 4.78 192 165
1970 3.98 7.99 286 248
1975 9.35 20.85 579 591
1980 13.5 60.3 758 1,589
1985 15.14 83.4 765 2,047
1990 23.1 237.9 1,064 5,569
1993 20.50 328.7 904 7,466
1994 21.3 508.3 923 9,980
SOURCES: Vantage Point 19, no. 3 July 1995): 18; National
Unification Board 1988: 30.

 Page 242
Predominance
After the Korean War, the North began to rebuild its economy and
Kim Il Sung moved to consolidate his internal position. While
rebuilding a decimated party membership, Kim also conducted purges
of opposing factions and began a period of intense indoctrination of
the North Korean populace (Koh 1991: 94). Even as Kim focused on
domestic consolidation, North Korea's external relations with its
patron states were at their warmest, although it would be simplistic to
view those relations as directed mainly to help the North to take over
the South. Although many scholars have asserted that North Korea
believed during the Cold War that China and the Soviet Union might
support Northern military moves against the South, there is
considerable evidence to the contrary. Powerful patrons are usually
demanding sponsors, not indulgent supporters.
North Korea took many steps to increase its independence vis-à-vis
the Chinese and the Soviets. North Korea's ability to remain outside
the formal strictures of the Council on Mutual Economic Cooperation
(COMECON) and the Soviet bloc, for example, derived from the
presence of another friendly superpower, China. Unlike the Eastern
European stateswhich depended on the Soviet Union for both their
existence and their securityNorth Korea could balance two major
powers against each other. North Korea did not have to choose which
superpower it would have as its primary patron, since each "friendly"
superpower was potentially willing to move closer to North Korea to
take advantage of North Korea's differences with the other (Kim
1986; Hunter 1983). But having more room to maneuver than puppet
states did not mean that North Korea was the "tail wagging the dog."
Relations between the two communist superpowers and North Korea
have never been steady or equal. After Khruschev's renunciation of
Stalin in 1956, Kim Il Sung directly criticized the Soviets and leaned
toward China, going so far as to emulate Mao's "Great Leap Forward"
with a North Korean variant, the Chollima, or "Flying Horse,"
movement of 1958. In 1961 both China and the Soviet Union signed
mutual defense treaties with North Korea, loaned or granted financial
support to rebuild its economy, and generally supported North Korean
rhetoric toward the West. Beginning with the Sino-Soviet split in the
early 1960s, North Korean reliance on the PRC and the USSR was
increasingly complemented by internal balancing and a search for
other sympathetic states with which North Korea could ally. As a
result of the diminished military and economic aid given to North
Korea by the two feuding nations, North Korea embarked on its own
military buildup. What has

 Page 243
been seen by analysts as a relentless drive toward military dominance
may well have been a response to shrinking security guarantees from
China and the Soviet Union (Park 1983).
For the first decade after the armistice in 1953, North Korea began to
gain an advantage over the South in economic growth and political
stability. While the South was mired in political factionalism and
uneven economic growth, the North managed to proceed apace at
recovery and then development. Well into the 1960s North Korea still
had a basis for confidence relative to South Korea.
Decline
As late as the mid-1970s, North Korea's economic and military
strength was roughly equivalent to that of the South. The early 1980s,
however, brought both the continued rise of South Korea's economy
and the beginning of economic stagnation in the North. This trend led
to further disparities in the quality of their respective military
establishments: as maintenance and improvement in the North became
more costly, the South was able to buy and produce more advanced
hardware than ever before. Most analysts agree that South Korea's per
capita GNP in 1994 was about ten times that of the North, while their
military establishments remained in rough parity (Masaki 1995; Lho
1988; Ha 1989; Eberstadt and Bannister 1991).
It was during this time of relative equality between the two states that
North Korea began to plan for the succession of Kim Il Sung by his
son, Kim Jong II. This was also the time when détente in Asia began
to loosen the tight bond between China and North Korea. Both North
and South Korea felt the pressure of changing superpower relations,
which resulted in the July 4, 1972, joint communiqué between North
and South Korea. Although both sides pledged to work toward
peaceful unification, both sides promptly fell back into the familiar
pattern of mutual recrimination and allegations.
The effect of changing superpower relations becomes particularly
evident when one considers that the North, far from desiring intimate
relations with its two patrons, must consider two potential problems
with such involvement. First, to rely too heavily on a patron
diminishes the client's independence. In international relations,
nations breach treaties and break promises with regularity. To depend
on a superpower for one's defense is to invite vulnerability and
dependence. North Korea had reason to believe that neither the Soviet
Union nor China would intervene on its behalf, because both have
proved unreliable to another communist state, Vietnam. Kenneth
Waltz (1981: 23) writes that "early in the [1970s], Pyongyang
watched Moscow welcome President Nixon

 Page 244
while the United States was bombing Haiphong. Late in the decade,
Pyongyang watched China invade Vietnam while the Soviet Union
failed to protect its client state." Second, any interference by a
superpower on North Korea's behalf would not be for North Korea's
sake, but in pursuit of the superpower's interests, and as such it would
diminish North Korea's independence. Far from being in a position to
play the Soviet Union and China against each other in order to gain an
advantage over South Korea, North Korea faced the challenge of
maintaining its independence from the more powerful states that
surrounded it. Such balancing could occur because the two friendly
powers, China and the Soviet Union, faced two rival powers, the
United States and Japan. Seen in this context, North Korea's foreign
policy relative to China and the Soviet Union during the 1970s and
beyond appears both defensive and reactive.
Poverty
By the mid-1980s North Korea had fallen far behind the South
according to almost every indicator. A structural view of North Korea
leads to the conclusion that it should be experiencing fear. The
intensity of the security dilemma, the loss of allies, the tremendous
economic growth in South Koreaall are signs that North Korea's
external situation has severely worsened. There have been three major
developments since the mid-1980s that have exacerbated an already
weak situation for North Korea. First, North Korea's two major
patrons, China and the Soviet Union, have significantly reduced the
level and intensity of their ties with North Koreafor example, Soviet
aid to North Korea fell from $260 million in 1980 to no aid at all in
1990 (see Table 4). Second, North Korea's autarkic economy has
begun to grind to a halt and has even contracted in the past few years.
And third, Kim Il Sung, North Korea's paramount leader since 1945,
died in 1994, leaving the country with a murky and potentially volatile
internal situation (see Table 5). In response to these three
developments, North Korean foreign policy in the late 1980s revolved
around three major elements: attempts to reverse the economic slide,
cautious efforts at rapprochement with the United States and Japan,
and a campaign to develop nuclear weapons.
By the late 1980s, certainly by 1991, North Korea faced the real
possibility of losing material and rhetorical support from both China
and the Soviet Union. Indeed by 1992 both China and the Soviet
Union had officially recognized South Korea and established formal
diplomatic relations with Seoul, leaving North Korea without any
partisan allies (Sanford 1990). At the same time, North Korea began
falling far behind

 Page 245
the South in terms of economic development and faced slow and even
declining growth.

4One result was that North Korea began to actively yet cautiously
approach both the United States and Japan in an attempt to relieve
both the military and the economic problems it faced. In 1991 Shin
Kanemaru, one of Japan's most powerful politicians, traveled to
Pyongyang and held talks with Kim Il Sung regarding normalization
of relations and reparations by Japan. But the emergence of the
nuclear issue made it politically impossible for Japan to continue talks
with North Korea. Similarly, North Korea's recent desire to improve
communications with the United States is a sign of the North's
recognition that it must alter its geopolitical relationships, even if
nuclear weapons remain an impediment.
TABLE 4
Aid to North Korea from the Soviet Union (millions of U.S.
dollars)
1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985
260 145 130 40 55 93
1986 1987 1988 1989 1990
6 -33 -41 -16 0
SOURCE: Noland 1996: 149.

TABLE 5
North Korea Compared with Its Neighbors and the United
States: Population and Gross Domestic Product, 1992
1992 1992 GDP Ratio of GDP to
population (billions of U.S. that of North Korea
(millions) dollars)
North 22 21
Korea
South 43 296 14:1
Korea
Japan 124 3,666 174:1
China 1,184 434 20:1
Russia 150 450 21:1
United 257 5,945 283:1
States
SOURCE: International Institute for Strategic Studies 1995.

 Page 246
Indeed, even South Korean observers note that North Korea's doctrine
has undergone a period of extensive rethinking. Hak-joon Kim (1995:
88) writes:
North Korea believes that the military balance on the peninsula has
changed, in the direction of being very disadvantageous for it ....North
Korea harbors apprehensions that the United States may be acting to bring
about the collapse of North Korea by playing upon its weaknesses. North
Korea has minutely evaluated the cause of the Soviet Union's ruin, and has
concluded that the Soviet Union was induced into excessive military
spending by the USA which resulted in domestic economic failure, which
in turn led to the inevitable collapse. This makes North Korea's political
elite profoundly paranoid over U.S. military activity in South Korea.

In sum, then, while the North is undeniably opportunistic and

aggressive, the important point is that North Korea has not challenged
the central balance of power on the peninsula. Far from being in a
position of power, North Korea has found itself obliged to keep pace
with the South and manage its alliance relationships with China and
the Soviet Union while retaining its own independence. The reciprocal
and zero-sum nature of peninsula relations has heightened both South
and North Korea's feelings of insecurity. Regardless of the history on
the peninsula, however, the situation for North Korea has changed
dramatically in the last five years. North Korea has been forced to
forge a new foreign policy strategy under deteriorating internal and
external conditions.
Foreign Policy and the Kim Dynasty
Much of North Korea's foreign policy is said to be the result of
personality or leadership by the Kim dynastyeither the former ruler,
Kim Il Sung, or his anointed successor, Kim Jong Il. The conventional
wisdom has focused on Kim Il Sung and his attitudes and attributes.
Some critics may argue that my analysis ignores precisely the central
aspect of North Korea's foreign policythe personalities of the North
Korean leaders, in particular that of the late Kim Il Sung. They may
further argue that certainly North Korea's foreign policy will be
affected by the tenuous future of his son, Kim Jong Il.
The problem with this criticism is that by resorting to the personality
of an irrational demagogue as an explanatory variable, analysts are
creating a deus ex machina by which any North Korean action can be
explained. We have less information about the internal workings of
the

 Page 247
North Korean state than we do about almost any other nation. Even if
we grant that Kim Il Sung's attitudes were important, we must ask
how Kim's value system and attitudes explain North Korean behavior.
This question rests on another: if Kim's attitudes and rationality were
important in explaining North Korean foreign policy, would a
different North Korean leader have produced a different set of
outcomes? What a focus on personality ignores is that we cannot
predict actions based on attributes if the situation itself matters.
Kenneth Waltz (1979: 61) writes: ''Just as peacemakers may fail to
make peace, so troublemakers may fail to make trouble. From
attributes one cannot predict outcomes if outcomes depend on the
situations of the actors as well as on their attributes." Given the Cold
War, the circumstances that led to the division of the peninsula, and
the Sino-Soviet split of the late 1950s, it is hard to imagine an
outcome in which North Korea is not an authoritarian communist
regime or one in which North and South are not locked in
competition.
This point is worth emphasizing. To my knowledge, only one scholar
has mentioned a counterfactual: James Cotton (1992: 521) makes a
one-sentence remark that had Pak Hon Yonga communist who
remained in Seoul after liberationbecome North Korea's leader,
perhaps North Korea would have been different. Cotton does not,
however, go on to specify how North Korea would have been
different. I agree that leaders have idiosyncratic styles and that certain
domestic situations would probably have been different had North
Korea ended up with a different dictator. The relevant question for my
analysis remains whether foreign policy would have differed
markedly. Given that we have so little information about Kim Il Sung,
Kim Jong Il, or decision making in North Korea, it seems plausible to
begin with a systematic evaluation of North Korea's observable
behavior and to see how that behavior conforms to broad theories of
international relations.
Much has been made of the "dynasty" being implemented in North
Korea (Oh 1991; Park 1982; Kim 1983; Yu 1982; Rhee 1987). But
dynastic succession is not as singular as it may appear. In small or
developing countries with significant institutional or political
weaknesses, "anointing" a son or close relative may be one way to
ensure both continuity and a smooth transfer of power. Chiang Kai-
shek's son, Chiang Ching-Kuo, took power, after his father's death, as
president of Taiwan and head of the Kuomintang (KMT). In
Singapore, Lee Kwan Yew's son, Lee Hsien-loong, is a general, first
deputy prime minister, and minister for trade and industry; he also
was head of the youth wing of the ruling People's Action Party. It is
also extremely common in China to place sons and daughters in
influential positions either in state

 Page 248
enterprises or in the Communist Party (Lewis, Di, and Xue 1991). In
this context, Kim Jong Il's rise to power, although it has provoked
intense scrutiny of the prospects for successful succession, is not as
anomalous as it may appear at first glance.
Succession Politics
The more important question for this study is whether or not domestic
succession politics have had an effect on North Korea's foreign policy
and its conception of security. Succession politics certainly did not
play a large role in determining North Korea's foreign policy before
the early 1980s, and I would submit that such concerns have not
unduly influenced North Korea's foreign policy since that time either.
The fundamental North Korean actions in the last decadeattempts to
gain nuclear weapons, continuing confusion regarding relations with
China and the Soviet Union, and cautious efforts at rapprochement
with the United States and Japando not seem to have been unduly
influenced by succession dynamics. The concerns that inform those
actions derive from changes in the international system and represent
efforts to survive as a political entity; thus they make sense within the
framework of neorealism.
More relevant for our analysis, however, are the "rationality" and
personality of Kim Jong II, the son and successor of Kim Il Sung.
Intense speculation has surrounded Kim Jong II, and various
anecdotes (virtually none extant in published works) call him either an
effete playboy, a terrorist mastermind, or a deranged and sickly
individual.

5This issue is problematic: any explanation of North Korean foreign

policy based on the leader's personal attributes requires two causal
connections to be made. First, we need conclusive evidence of the
leader's personality. Second, and more important, we also require
evidence that these personality traits affect his decisions regarding
foreign policy. For example, a popular perception of Kim Jong Il cites
a penchant for Western movies and Swedish starlets. But how does
this reputed interest translate into foreign policy decisions? Will a
taste for Western cinema make Kim Jong Il more sympathetic to the
Westor less? Will knowing actresses make Kim more likely to open
the economic doors to the Westor less? The scanty amount of
knowledge regarding Kim Jong Il should make any analyst cautious
about such inferences.

Although there is no question that North Korea is a highly

authoritarian state and is currently grappling with a myriad of
domestic problems, it would be unwise to assume that North Korea
has never been able to manage its domestic affairs or that today's
problems are insur-

 Page 249
mountable. In fact, North Korea has a record of skillful domestic
management. According to Nicholas Eberstadt (1995: 132), "Because
North Korea presents such an unattractiveeven freakishface to the
outside world, it has often been misjudged. In important respects the
regime has been underestimated. Fanatical or surreal as this 'red
dynasty' may appear, many of its policies have been practical and
effective. Of all Asia's communist states (including the USSR), only
North Korea avoided famine in the course of its collectivization of
agriculture."
Again, the reciprocal nature of peninsular relations is important. South
Koreans and Americans focus on North Korea's recent effusive thanks
to Japan for sending rice aidand its pointed refusal to thank South
Korea for its support. That rebuff has prompted the South Koreans to
declare that they will not provide further aid to North Korea until it
responds appropriately. Yet the South declined to acknowledge the
death of Kim II Sung, refused to let South Koreans attend the funeral,
and began a crackdown on students and campuses reminiscent of the
Chun era. Without assessing the merit of any of these actions, the
evidence is fairly clear that both North and South Korea engage in
petty diplomatic squabbling to the detriment of larger and more
important negotiations.
The worldviews of leaders are indeed important, especially when one
is assessing a nation's conception of its security. In these few pages I
have attempted to show that North Korea, despite its singular
domestic leadership, is not entirely different from other nations in
terms of its choice of leaders or their actions. Although the Kim
dynasty is undoubtedly concerned with the stability of its own regime,
it is hard to imagine any North Korean ruler acting substantially
differently toward the South or toward the United States. Regardless
of internal politics, North Korean leaders of any sort will be
concerned with preserving regime and state and deterring the South.
Internal Politics
Domestic politics in North Korea remains tightly controlled, and there
is mixed evidence as to whether internal decay is occurring. In 1995,
only 36 North Koreans defected to the Southcompared to more than
39,000 defectors from East Germany to West Germany in 1988, the
year before the opening of the Berlin Wall. Many of these "North
Korean" defectors came through China and were in fact Siberian
lumberjacks from the northern regions. What is startling about this
number is the dearth of defectors. There are only two explanations:
that political control from the centereven at the fringes of North
Korean societyremains robust; or that North Koreans are genuinely
satisfied

 Page 250
and do not wish to leave the country. I place very little stock in the
latter hypothesis. I conclude that North Korea's political control is
likely to remain firm. Indeed, other analysts have made similar points
(Kim 1995: 84). This brief discussion of North Korean internal
politics raises two implications for the study of North Korea. First,
scholars know very little about what happens in North Korea. Second,
most of the evidence about North Korea's achievements with regard to
gross domestic product and quality of life is quite mixed. The high-
level defection of Hwang Jong Yop in early 1997, along with a
stagnant economy, raised anew questions of North Korea's stability
and long-run viability.
Another potential source of instability that does not involve civil
unrest is division within the elite. Although there have been rumors of
palace intrigue among members of the Kim family, they appear to be
no more than rumors. Kim Pyong Ilwidely reported to be the most
ambitious and capable of the half-brothers of Kim Jong Ilmade clear
in Helsinki in 1994 that Kim Jong Il is the only legitimate successor to
his father. Additionally, as Hak-joon Kim writes,
The members of the new generation who function in a leadership role,
without regard to their original stations in life, are working-level
officials.... Kim Jong-il's advisors are drawn from a wide variety of
fieldsfrom politics, diplomacy, the military, economics, the sciences,
ideology and the arts. The change in the composition of those who serve
Kim Jong-il appears to be because, with the installation of the junior Kim
as successor, North Korean society also entered a period of stability. (Kim
1995: 79)

Thus, although there is considerable potential for domestic strife in

North Korea, the evidence to date reveals little active protest.
Observational Equivalence and Military Doctrine
There exists a general perception that North Korea's military is poised
for conflict and intends to start a major war, but a closer examination
reveals that this is not necessarily the case. A major question is
whether North Korea's military doctrine is offensive or defensive.
Any discussion of North Korea's conception of security, whether
revisionist or status quo, must begin by laying out the range of
possible military deployments, force structures, and doctrines that
North Korea might have pursued. These range from a deployment
north of Pyongyang (militarily unrealistic), to building a Maginot Line
along the demilitarized zone (DMZ), to deploying only around
Pyongyang and Wonsan and

 Page 251
basically ceding the bulk of North Korean territory to the South in the
event of a war.
Many analysts have used forward deployment as an indicator of North
Korean intentions. Yet with Pyongyang and Seoul separated by less
than 250 kilometers, no deployment could be considered purely
defensive. The geographic proximity of the two armies exacerbates an
already acute security dilemma. In the event of a conflict, neither side
can afford a strategy of "trading space for time" as Stalin did in World
War II. There are three reasons why offensive and defensive
intentions are observationally equivalent on the Korean peninsulathat
is, why observable behaviors based on either offensive or defensive
intentions would be identical. First, forward deployment is the
unsurprising result of the strategic situation on the peninsula. Second,
the North has not taken other actions that might enhance an offensive
tactical doctrine. Third, the U.S.-ROK forces too have an offensive
doctrine and forward deploymentyet they believe they have peaceful
intentions.
The million-man army in the North is composed of four front-line
corps, four mechanized corps, an armored corps, and an artillery
corps, with five other corps-sized units deployed throughout the
DPRK. The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency reports that 65 percent
of those troops are deployed within 100 kilometers of the DMZ
(Defense Intelligence Agency 1991: 9). Yet it is important to
remember that Pyongyang is only 125 kilometers from Panmunjom in
the DMZ. Thus it might be more accurate to say that 65 percent of the
North Korean troops are deployed in front of their capital. This is
hardly surprising. It would be far more surprising if the DPRK were to
deploy its troops in the north, far from where conflict is likely to
occur, or behind the capital. Thus a fruitful discussion of "forward
deployment" in the Korean context is far more difficult than it might
initially appear.
Moreover, military analysts have argued that the North has forward-
deployed its munitions, stockpiling weapons and material close to the
border. They argue that this demonstrates that North Korea is
preparing for a sudden strike. Yet there are equally compelling
explanations for this behavior. Certainly the logistical situation in
North Koreanever goodhas deteriorated over the past decades.
Although a great deal of effort has been put into transport facilities
leading to the DMZ, many roads remain unpaved and much
reinforcement is needed on the 75 percent of North Korea's railroads
that are electrified (Von Hippel and Hayes 1995). Thus North Korea's
transportation grid is vulnerable to air interdiction. Given an already
acute energy crisis in the North and the likelihood of U.S.-ROK air
superiority if not dominance, front-line units cannot expect to be
resupplied from rear areas. Thus it makes sense

 Page 252
to stockpile munitions as close to the units as possible. This forward
deployment, however, creates offensive problems as well. Offensive
movement is far more difficult from fixed munitions positionslacking
adequate logistical support, North Korean military units will face
serious problems if they leave their stockpiles to advance or retreat.
North Korea might have taken other steps to increase its ability to
advance, but those steps have not been taken. The one lesson North
Korea should have learned from the Korean War is that it is extremely
vulnerable to naval interdiction. Indeed, the Inchon landing of 1950
threatened to wipe out the North Korean forces south of Seoul.
Moreover, an enemy's ability to bypass the Alpha-Feba line through
amphibious landings would appear to be critical. Yet North Korea's
naval forces remain overwhelmingly of the coastal defense
varietysmall ships incapable of moving large units south or of foiling
U.S. naval actions.
General Robert Riscassi, commander of the U.S. forces in Korea,
provided some insight in his testimony before the House of
Representatives in 1992.
North Korea has prioritized its force structure...so some force elements are
not presently at peak readiness. Employing its vast armed forces in a
limited notice attack would be a difficult undertaking for even the most
highly trained military force, so we assume some current level of
degradation. Prior to an offensive, however, we would expect enhanced
training activity to improve their prospects of success. Also, a number of
North Korea's military systems are based on old technologies, updated
with product improvement programs, but still limited in capability due to
vintage.

Table 6 compares the quality and quantity of selected aircraft and

armor for North and South Korea.
Moreover, armies are designed to fight. Taking soldiers and putting
them on "100-day campaigns" to build bridges or bring in rice crops
seriously degrades their fighting performance. Not only does morale
suffer but cohesion and trainingessential for a functioning armyare
neglected. Large numbers of soldiers do not make a high-quality
army; more important is the quality of the forces. Because it is
impossible to keep an army at peak readiness at all times, troops lose
their edge if "war fever" is continuous. If troops are held at battle
readiness too long, their performance deteriorates.
Finally, the U.S.-ROK forces, though they identify themselves as
nonthreatening to the North, also operate under an offensive doctrine
and use forward deployment. U.S.-ROK doctrine calls for "American
forces and their South Korean counterparts to assume the offensive
and strike deep into the rear echelons of the attacking forces" in the
event of

 Page 253
a North Korean invasion (Tow 1991: 179). This is perhaps the most
revealing argument for observational equivalence. There are sound
strategic reasons for the U.S.-ROK forces to be forward-deployed in
front of Seoul, not the least of which is defense of the capital. Such
defensive preparations, regardless of the conditions under which they
are made, can appear offensive to the other side. The lack of
geographic space and the need to gain momentum make forward
deployment a sound choice for both sides.
TABLE 6
Comparison of North and South Korea's Military Hardware
North Korea South Comments
Korea
Main battle 3,700: T-34; 1,800: T-34 are WWII vintage; T-55
tanks T54/55; T-62; 400 M- introduced in 1957. M-47 are
Type 59 47; 950 WWII vintage; M-48 from
M-48; 1952.
450 Type
88
Fighter 640 MiG-17 132 F- MiG-17, MiG-19 and MiG-
aircraft 360 MiG-19 4D/E 206 21 all introduced before
160 MiG-21 F-5 96 F- 1956; MiG-29 in 1983. F-4
46 MiG-23 14 16 introduced in 1963; F-5 in
MiG-29 14 1972; F-16 in 1980. U.S. has
Su-7 36 Su-25 72 F-16s in South Korea.
Bombers 240 H-5
Amphibious24 LCM 7 7 LST
equipment LCU 100 (200
LCVP troops, 16
tanks) 7
LSM (50
troops, 4
tanks)
SOURCES: International Institute for Strategic Studies 1995;
Dunigan 1983.


 Page 254
Adding to the North's security fears, the annual U.S.-ROK joint
military exercises known as "Team Spirit" regularly include
amphibious assault and airborne exercises. Team Spirit, the largest
U.S. military exercise anywhere in the world, involves nuclear-
capable aircraft, aircraft carriers, and units brought in from around
Asia. What the North fears, as Team Spirit occurs year after year, is
that at some point the U.S.-ROK forces will actually attack the North,
having dulled its wariness through repeated yearly exercises. For the
U.S.-ROK forces, Team Spirit is an opportunity to assess battle
readiness as well as to practice and integrate the latest weapons
systems. For the United States, therefore, Team Spirit serves many
purposes. But each time the exercises are held, activity in the North
comes to a virtual standstill as the nation prepares for a surprise
attack. It should be noted, however, that the United States has
canceled Team Spirit in the past few years as a sign of good faith
toward North Korea.
I am not arguing that South Korea is the aggressor on the peninsula.
My point, rather, is that a zero-sum contest for supremacy and
constricted space have fairly straightforward implications: each side's
conception of security is oriented primarily to the other side; each side
is dependent on the other for survival; and each side can destroy the
other. Thus both sides will concentrate on deterring the other side as
the perceived aggressor. One would hardly expect the North not to be
concerned about South Korea's intentions.
Given that deriving testable propositions about the "true" nature of
external threats from a structural view is not possible, the next step in
our analysis is to create alternative propositions that will eventually
result in a prediction that will show some change in the dependent
variable. We must look for extensions of their intentions that will
provide us with some clues.
The Real Question: North Korean Preferences
What is really in dispute is the theory of preference formation, not
actual capabilities or even doctrines. The standard explanation is that
North Korea wants to invade the South. Even the most informal of
rationalist approaches shows that this is an overly simple way of
thinking about preferences. Generally a researcher posits that
hierarchic goals are pursued in relation to their expected utility.
Decisions about competing goals are then undertaken with an eye
toward which action will best maximize overall utility. That is,
without evaluating probabilities and alternative actions, merely having
a goal does not fully specify the decision tree. Thus any argument
about North Korean preferences must

 Page 255
also include the costs, the benefits, and the chances of success. A
decision to invade the South involves three separate calculations: the
value and costs of achieving the goal, the likelihood of success, and
the efficacy of other possible actions. Although North Korea may
value the goal of communizing the South, the analyst must also show
that in the North's perception the benefits outweigh the costs, the
probability of success is positive, and other actions are less desired.
Moreover, the analyst must be very clear about the range of the
variables under analysis. Thus any discussion of why North Korea
took the policies it did toward South Korea and the world must
explain why other potential choices were not made. Certainly North
Korea as a nation may have a variety of goals: deterring invasion from
the South, unifying with the South, maintaining the regime's stability,
maximizing the benefits it receives from the international system
while minimizing the costs, and many others. Much of the work on
North Korea, however, seems to ignore this range of goals, choosing
to focus only on what has happened or what North Korea wants to
happen. In short, any argument about North Korea's decision to
invade or not to invade the South must also incorporate a discussion
about other potential North Korean choices regarding North-South
relations (see Figure 1). Because of the Korean War, many analysts
have focused on the idea that North Korea wants to invade. But any
argument that North Korea would invade must also explain why it
would not choose other options. From Figure 1 it is fairly clear that,
given the alternatives, North Korea's actual choices of armistice and
small-scale violence are not that surprising. And, as I will show, such
choices fit easily within an explanation of North Korea's actions that
focuses on its security concerns and instrumental behavior.
We need to understand North Korea's foreign policy toward other
nations, as well. Much rhetoric has surrounded North Korea's
bellicose stance against the West, leading to the conclusion that this
must be a nation of cult-worshipping deadheads. Yet the range of
choices available

Figure 1
North Korea's Policy Options Toward South Korea

 Page 256

Figure 2
North Korea's Options for International Relations
to North Korea was severely limited until the early 1990s, and even
since then the range has not changed dramatically (see Figure 2.)
After all, North Korea has not invaded the South for more than 45
years. Its "revealed preferences" have been for armistice, not war. Yet
we have seen a series of post hoc rationalizations arguing that North
Korea must still be revisionist, including discussions of terrorism and
nuclear weapons.
The notion that North Korea might indeed have genuine security fears
is generally scoffed at in South Korea and in the United States. Yet
there is good evidence that the South Koreans have at times desired to
invade the North. Certainly North Korea was increasingly aggressive
during the 1960s, especially in 1968 when a team of North Korean
commandos infiltrated the South with the goal of assassinating Park
Chung Hee. The commandos were stopped within a mile or so of the
Blue House, the Korean presidential mansion. Events along the DMZ
led to increased firefights. In response, Park urged preemptive strikes
against the North (Cho 1969), but U.S. help was not forthcoming. The
United States had operational control of the South Korean military
and was virtually immobilized by the U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
The Tet offensive began a week after the North Koreans captured the
USS Pueblo and paralyzed U.S. responses in Korea. Indicative of the
situation is this exchange between Congress and the U.S. ambassador
to South Korea:
 MR. FRASER: How did the Korean Government perceive these events in
relation to its ongoing concern about its security?
MR. PORTER: With great concern. It was a very severe shock. Both items
were very severe shocks for the president, the Cabinet, and the people as a
whole. President Park was quite intent on striking back. He told me he
could be in Pyongyang within 2 days' time, and I had to tell him that if he
tried that he would have to do it alone.

 Page 257
The South, too, would like to see the unification of the peninsula on
its terms. But while South Korea may cherish that goal, the South also
realizes that the costs of such an action would be too severe. Tensions
on the peninsula also prompted the South to begin a search for nuclear
weapons in the early 1970s. Although the program was eventually
dropped because of extensive U.S. pressure, it is likely that the effort
increased North Korean fears of the South (Meyer 1978; Spector
1984; Gillette 1978; Hayes 1991). In the 1990s, South Korea's
increasing confidence based on economic development has
occasionally led to a more militant posture toward the North. In one
widely quoted statement, a senior South Korean official called for
military strikes against the North Korean nuclear plant at Yongbyon in
late 1993. North Korea is in no position to move beyond the basic
realist goals of survival and deterrence, because its own survival in the
world is by no means assured.
Terrorism as a Cheap Coup
Perhaps the most compelling evidence that North Korea is in some
sense ''irrational," and its conception of security revisionist, derives
from its use of terrorism as a tool of foreign policy. North Korea has
been described as a nation of "paranoid survivalists" (Olsen 1986:
852) and "a renegade state" (Spector and Smith 1991: 8). Typical of
this perspective is a statement by John Perry (1990: 188): "Rhetorical
style and financial irresponsibility pale beside the impact on
international public opinion of the inexplicable spasms of violence
perpetuated by North Korea. Much can be said against the erratic
ferocity of such behavior." North Korea has indeed pursued a fairly
consistent policy of terrorism against South Korea. From the 1968
attack on the South Korean presidential mansion, to the attempted
assassination of South Korean president Park Chung Hee in 1974, to
the bombing of the Chun cabinet in Rangoon in 1983, to the
destruction of a KAL airliner in 1987, North Korea has consistently
shown that it is willing to use terror as a means of foreign policy. The
analyst's task is to make sense out of the terrorism. For some,
terrorism is proof that North Korea is both irrational and undeterrablea
nation so bent on pursuing the overthrow of the South that it takes
actions that are counterproductive to its own goals.
Terrorism, however, occurs for political reasons. The analyst must
answer two questions: Why terrorism? And why a certain type of
terrorism? An extensive literature has distinguished between two
types of terrorism: antistate and antisociety (Gurr 1970; Ford 1985;
Chai 1993; DeNardo 1985; Taylor 1988). Antistate terrorism
(sometimes referred to as guerrilla warfare) involves some group
attempting to make the costs of

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governance so high that the state chooses either to capitulate or to
bargain with the group. Examples include the Jewish use of terror in
Palestine while attempting to drive out the British in 1945-48 and,
more recently, the Intifada in Palestine by which the Palestinians
attempted to drive out the Israelis. The second type of terrorism
occurs against society itself. Its aim is to make life so difficult for the
people that they pressure the state to take action. Examples include the
"troubles" in Northern Ireland and Arab terrorism against Israel.

Why Terrorism?
In a previous section I have shown that North Korea is unlikely to
invade the South. Given the South's overwhelming economic,
military, and political advantage, it would in fact be irrational for the
North to invade. Although most analysts cite terrorist activities as
evidence of aggressive intentions, a nation may pursue terrorist
activities to avoid threatening the central strategic balance. Given the
evidence, one can argue that precisely because the North does not
wish to challenge the status quo on the peninsula, it pursues peripheral
actions (Hayes 1991: 158). There is a distinction between reckless
behavior and aggressive behavior. I am not arguing that North Korea
is satisfied with the status quo; I am arguing that North Korea is well
aware of the risks of challenging the central balance of power.
This point is controversial. Let me emphasize that although neither
South Korea nor North Korea is a status quo state that is satisfied with
the current division on the peninsula, the North has not been reckless.
Terrorist activities have been undertaken when the risk was essentially
low, and the North has never come close to actually threatening war
on the DMZ. Consider the "tree-cutting" incident of 1976, when two
U.S. soldiers were killed in the DMZ by North Koreans. In response,
on August 20, 1976, nuclear-capable B-52 bombers flew from Guam
to Korea and up toward the DMZ, veering off only at the last moment.
A U.S. analyst who monitored North Korean communications during
the flights said: "They didn't know what was in them and we scared
the living shit out of them" (Hayes 1991: 89). Within a few weeks
Kim Il Sung had publicly called for a reduction of tensions. Thereafter
North Korea began pursuing warmer relations with the Carter
administration. Indeed, Kim Il Sung went so far as to call President
Carter "a man of great justice." The point is that although North Korea
has chosen to pursue terrorist activities when the risks were low, it has
not risked direct confrontation on the peninsula. When tensions have
escalated, the North has backed away.

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Why Antistate Terrorism?
The form of terrorism pursued by the North is consistent with the idea
that North Korea clearly assesses the international environment.
Given that the North desires the overthrow of the South Korean
government but also wants the support of the people, North Korea
pursues antistate activities while explicitly avoiding attacking the
population of South Korea itself. North Korean terrorists could
detonate bombs in downtown Seoul on a daily basis if that were their
goal. But the goal of the North Korean regime is not to turn the entire
Southern population against the North, but rather the oppositeto
destabilize the South Korean regime in the hope that a coup or
insurgency will result in a government more favorable to the North.
There is, in fact, sufficient evidence that the South has been so
unstable that the North might reasonably hope to topple the South
Korean regime with just a small shove. Student riots overthrew the
Syngman Rhee administration in 1960 (the famous April 19
movement). In the early 1970s, civilian unrest forced Park Chung Hee
to close the universities and declare martial law. In a thoroughly
manipulated 1971 presidential election, Park barely won with 51
percent of the vote. In 1979, an assassination and a coup led to huge
protests in the city of Kwangju that were violently suppressed by the
South Korean militaryofficial estimates are 200 killed and 2,000
injured. This record of unstable and repressive regimes in the South
has been a lure to the North. In light of such obvious discontent
among a large portion of the South Korean populace, the North's
hopes that attacking the South Korean leadership might result in chaos
or collapse were certainly justified.
Terrorist attacks against the people themselves, however, would have
unified the South Korean populace against the North. And so, not
surprisingly, the North has attacked not the population of the South
but the leaders. That policy is consistent with the idea that North
but the leaders. That policy is consistent with the idea that North
Korea is not willing to risk a direct military attack on the South and
also with the notion that North Korea has specific goals in mind when
it uses terrorism. This argument implying rational choice leads to
some clear predictions. First, North Korea will not use terrorism
against the people of the South Korea.

9Second, as the South Korean government becomes more legitimate

through the use of democratically elected officials and the redress of
past crimes by its political leaders, the North will come to realize that
the utility of terrorism is receding. Thus, the more legitimate the
South Korean government, the less likely North Korea will use
terrorism. Such an analysis allows for fairly specific predictions and
focuses the discussion of North Korean foreign policy.

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Nuclear Weapons and Military Effects
North Korea already has the functional equivalent of a nuclear
deterrent: its threats to destroy Seoul "like a rabid dog barking at the
sky" are taken seriously in Asia and in the West, leading South
Korean and U.S. leaders to deal cautiously with North Korea. Because
Seoul is vulnerable to air attack and is the center of South Korean life,
the South Korean military is reluctant to escalate tensions too quickly.
Rather than saying that the North is in a position to invade the South,
it would be more accurate to describe the peninsular situation as a
standoff. Neither side wishes to provoke a war, because both sides
know the destruction it would bring.
Much of the discussion surrounding proliferation of nuclear weapons
to small states has focused on unit-level analyses, debating the
reliability of command and control, technical barriers, and systems
vulnerability (Davis and Frankel 1993; Dunn 1982; Rosen 1977;
Subrahmanyam 1984; Ilke 1973; Spector 1984). It seems clear that
any state with an intense security dilemma should wish to procure or
develop nuclear weapons. In the face of declining superpower
support, a small state must secure its own defense. One highly
effective way of doing this is to develop a nuclear weapons
capabilityespecially if the other side has nuclear weapons. North
Korea's statements, although equivocal, reveal its acute awareness of
its own vulnerability.

10

What little evidence we have about North Korean nuclear weapons

development is circumstantial and limited at best. Whether the goal is
to gain a bargaining chip or to attain an effective deterrent, the pursuit
of nuclear weapons by North Korea should come as no surprise. As
Andrew Mack (1991: 93) notes, "From the North Korean perspective,
the reasons for not going nuclear may be outweighed by the
perception of a growing strategic need for nuclear weapons." North
Korea's allies are deserting it. Its economic infrastructure is stagnant.
The South appears threatening. Why then did North Korea wait until
the 1980s to begin developing a nuclear weapon? Surely it could have
begun much earlier. After all, China first detonated a nuclear weapon
in the early 1960s, and the Soviets had developed bombs in the 1950s
(Cumings 1992).
It was not until South Korea began to overtake and surpass North
Korea in the late 1970s that the North's security was threatened
seriously enough for it to attempt to develop such a weapon. During
the 1970s South Korea tried to procure nuclear weapons, prompting
strong reactions from both the United States and North Korea. The
North Koreans acknowledge that they are searching for security. The
North

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Korean press has quoted Kim Yong Nam, the foreign minister, as
saying that détente between the Soviet Union and South Korea "will
leave us no other choice but to take measures to provide us...some
weapons for which we have so far relied on the Soviet Union"
(Spector and Smith 1991: 13). Even though the United States
officially removed its land-based nuclear warheads from the peninsula
in 1991, the nuclear deterrent remains quite strong: the Seventh Fleet
has nuclear-capable weaponry and is assigned to the Pacific region;
the annual Team Spirit exercises include nuclear simulations; the
United States retains nuclear-capable aircraft at bases in Korea.
Such factors have no doubt exacerbated the North's concern over
possible aggression from the South. The South's stunning growth,
along with the North's frequently cool relations with both the Soviet
Union and China, have combined to make North Korea feel that it
must provide for its own security without expecting help from others.
The general consensus among Western policy makers is that nuclear
weapons in the North would result in an aggressive North acting
irrationally and dangerously (Song 1991). But we must remember two
facts about tensions in Korea. First, two or three crude nuclear
weapons provide no offensive capability and would not significantly
alter the military balance on the peninsula, although the diplomatic
context might change. North Korea is no more likely to win a war
with nuclear weapons than without them. North Korea, knowing that
the stakes would be even greater and that the United States could
respond with nuclear weapons, might even be less likely to launch a
war. Second, robust deterrence on the Korean peninsula has resulted
from a steadfast U.S. commitment to the South. Less important to
deterrence than actual American troops stationed on the peninsula is
the potential for U.S. involvement: North Korea cannot hope to win a
war against the United States. Thus stability is maintained by the U.S.
military commitment to the South, whether nuclear or conventional.
While that commitment remains strong, the likelihood of war on the
peninsula is slight.
Moreover, nuclear weapons confer no offensive capability.
Surprisingly, many specialists regard North Korea's acquisition of
nuclear weapons as potentially offensive and believe that it increases
the likelihood that North Korea will initiate war. Yet nuclear weapons
are too large and powerful to confer militarily useful offensive
capability. Nuclear weapons do not "fight" anything; they merely
destroy. Thus they offer little offensive or defensive capability. What
nuclear weapons do best is deter, for they allow the loser of a war to
kill the winner (Waltz 1990). Some scholars have argued that North
Korea is developing the bomb because it wants to invade South Korea
under a nuclear umbrella

 Page 262
that will ensure that a conventional war is fought. Along these lines is
William Tow's statement that "the immediate effect of a North Korean
nuclear force would be to complicate American escalation control
options in response to [a] DPRK blitzkrieg invasion (1991: 198)." If
that is the case, the peninsula will continue to be stable as long as the
U.S. conventional deterrent remains solid. As offensive weapons,
nuclear weapons hold little value; but if North Korea were to develop
the bomb, it would have a robust deterrent.
Nuclear weapons are political, not military, instruments. Here are four
possible scenarios under which North Korea might use a nuclear
device. First, without actual military hostilities, a nuclear device could
be hidden away in Seoul to blackmail the South Korean regime into
capitulation. Second, the nuclear weapon could be a deterrent to the
South after North Korea made a limited invasion and took Seoul.
Third, nuclear weapons could deter U.S. escalation of hostilities by
threatening a port city such as Pusan, where major U.S.
reinforcements would arrive. Finally, a nuclear device could be used
against front-line troops. These scenarios, though frightening, are far
from likely. It is important to remember that a nuclear weapon, like
terrorism, is used for political effect. Random use of nuclear weapons
is improbable. In this sense, nuclear weapons are much more valuable
unused than used. If North Korea has a tiny stockpile of weapons (one
or two), those weapons would be capable of virtually nothing that
conventional weapons cannot already do. North Korea already has the
conventional capability to destroy Seoul. North Korea can already
target the Japanese islands with its SCUD missiles.
There is only one difference in outcome that would result from the use
of a nuclear weaponand that difference would be unambiguously
negative for North Korea. The use of nuclear weapons would remove
any barriers constraining the United States and South Korea to a
limited war. There would be no limit to the escalation the United
States could mount. Any domestic pressure in the United States
against the use of nuclear weapons or overwhelming force would be
likely to vanish, and the result would undoubtedly be the destruction
of the North Korean regime.
The point of this section has been to show that the pursuit of a nuclear
capability in North Koreaeven the suspicion that such a program
existsis useful to North Korea's long-term strategy of contest with the
South. Nuclear weapons constitute just one of a series of military and
diplomatic strategies that North Korea has pursued in an effort to
unify the peninsula. North Korea's ability to portray itself as a
dangerous nation that must be taken seriously works to its long-term
advantage.

 Page 263
That image is particularly important when the economic reality in
North Korea is increasingly one of stagnation, decay, and impotence.
Conclusion: Deterrence Through Danger
North Korea's conception of security, then, is essentially defensive
and realist in orientation. The theories of international relations cited
at the beginning of the chapter do in fact explain the North Korean
conception of security fairly accurately: a small power facing a rising
power and losing its allies will experience more fear. Yet North Korea
remains opportunistic as well. Resilient and resourceful, the North
may well decide on a policy that will allow it to survive into the near
future.
While much of North Korea's domestic politics remains shrouded in
mystery, its foreign policy actions point to a consistent goal of
deterrence through danger. Caught in a zero-sum battle for legitimacy
and supremacy on the peninsula, North and South Korea are
interdependent as each pursues its own securityneither can ignore the
other, both can destroy the other. The implications are
straightforward: North Korea's conception of security remains
overwhelmingly realist in orientation and external in focus. Domestic
considerations of economic development and quality of life are
subordinated to the goal of survival for the regime.

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7
South Korea
Recasting Security Paradigms
Chung-in Moon
Geopolitical destiny has burdened the Korean peninsula with a
historical legacy of humiliation and suffering. Frequent Chinese
invasion, Japanese colonial domination, a forced division of the
Korean nation, and the lingering memory of the Korean War have
instilled in Koreans a fatalistic sense of insecurity and resignation.
Security issues still haunt South Koreans. Military threats from the
North are real and acute. Despite the facade of strategic stability
buttressed by the bipolarity of the Cold War era, South Koreans have
been captives of a self-imposed image of international, regional, and
peninsular anarchy. In a world of anarchy, ensuring the survival of
South Korea (the ROK) as a sovereign state has become a national
mandate, even an obsession. For the preservation of the South Korean
state, realist prescriptions have prevailed: military self-help through
the maximization of physical power, effective mobilization of human
and material resources, and assertive pursuit of an alliance with the
United States. South Korea's security practices during the Cold War
era can be best described as a fortified realism.
Since the late 1980s, however, South Korea has undergone major
internal and external transformations that have profoundly affected its
traditional conception of security. While the demise of authoritarian
rule and the transition to democratic governance have facilitated the
transformation of the ideological and institutional foundations of
security, the end of the Cold War international system has altered
regional and


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peninsular strategic parameters as well as perceptions of threat.
Growing economic, social, and ecological interdependence and the
diffusion of globalization into new policy arenas have also fostered
new discourses on the referents and practice of security in South
Korea (see Moon 1995; Moon and S. Lee 1995: 99-115; Steinberg
1995; Choi and Lim 1993; Hahm 1992).
The concept and practice of security do not exist in a vacuum; they
vary according to context. South Korea is no exception.
Democratization, the advent of a posthegemonic world order, and
globalization have indeed precipitated contextual changes that have
altered the dominant security paradigm in South Korea. Against the
backdrop of those changes, this chapter explores the shifting nature of
security discourses and practices in South Korea. The first section
examines South Korea's dominant security paradigm along four
analytical dimensions: metastructure, institutional foundation, external
management, and security agenda. The second unravels the
metastructural foundation of the country's security practices by
looking into the dynamic interplay of perception, ideology, and
identity. The third section analyzes changes in the domestic
institutional foundation by elucidating the impact of democratization
on state structure. The fourth addresses the external dimensions of
security practice, including the politics of alliance management and
the recent policy tilt toward regional and multilateral security
cooperation regimes. The chapter concludes by recasting the scope of
South Korea's security agenda in the light of domestic and
international changes.
Unraveling the Dominant Security Paradigm
The concept of security is largely subjective and even elusive
(Wolfers 1962a; Knorr and Trager 1977; Buzan 1983; Azar and Moon
1988). As Muthiah Alagappa has explained in Chapter 1 of this
volume, its interpretation and practice can vary in terms of referents or
according to epistemological positions taken by central decision
makers. The concept of security and its application to national and
international politics can be approached from four salient angles:
metastructure, institutional foundation, external management, and
scope of security agenda.
Metastructure shapes the cognitive map that guides central decision
makers as they assess threats, formulate policy, and implement overall
security. It is the software of a security management system.
Metastructure comprises three dimensions: historical context of threat
perception, ideology, and identity. Historical context informs threat
perception by identifying sources and types of outstanding and
potential

 Page 266
threats; ideology provides a set of norms, beliefs, and value
orientations that shape society's understanding of the security
concerns; identity is important because it offers a critical referent for
defining the contents and scope of the security in question. In a world
of complex interdependence and multiple actors, security cannot be
limited simply to national or state security. Depending on the context
from which the security problem arises, it can involve diverse
meanings and identities.

The institutional foundation refers to the domestic structure and

process of decision making about and implementation of security
policy. It is significant not only because it defines the rules of the
game related to security practice, but also because it determines the
effectiveness of the domestic security coping mechanism. The
institutional foundation is largely a reflection of the underlying
political structure, which comprises three interrelated factors: the
degree of executive dominance, bureaucratic unity and fragmentation,
and the extent to which security policy making is insulated from
contending social and political pressures (Krasner 1978; Katzenstein
1978; Rockeman and Weaver 1993). Articulation and enforcement of
security policies, as well as mobilization and allocation of resources,
usually depend on the institutional arrangements that govern security
practice.
The patterns of external management can condition the nature and
direction of security practice as well. External management is largely
contingent on the perception of the security environment. If it is
perceived as being anarchicthat is, an environment in which stability
is assured only through the logic of balance of power and military
deterrencealliance will be the most compelling choice for external
management. If the security environment is less hostile or no viable
alliance is available, however, multilateral or regional security
cooperation regimes might be favored. Whether one should apply
realist or liberal institutionalist prescriptions to the external
management of the security dilemma is determined largely by the
context.
Finally, the scope of security matters. The concept of security has
been traditionally confined to the physical protection of a nation-
state's territorial and political integrity from external military attack.
That thinking narrowly defines security as military security. In reality,
however, the scope of the security agenda cannot be so circumscribed.
For some countries, military security may be of vital importance; in
other countries, nonmilitary issues may be just as pressing, perhaps
even more so. Economic security involving competitiveness, stability,
and welfare (Knorr and Trager 1977; Sandholtz et al. 1992); survival
of the national population through ecological integrity (Brown 1977;
Pirages 1978; Myers 1989); prevention of the nation-state's
disintegration by ensuring

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communal harmony (Horowitz 1985; Azar 1990; Gurr 1994); and
preservation of social stability by coping with transnational
penetration of organized crime, drug trafficking, and terrorism could
be of greater national importance than military security.
According to these analytical guidelines, South Korea's dominant
security paradigm could be called a developmental realism that
combines realism with developmental statism. Whereas its scope,
metastructure, and external management reveal the predominance of
realism (Min 1973; Baek 1985; Rhee 1986; Min-yong Lee 1996), the
domestic institutional foundation is embedded in developmental
statism (Haggard and Moon 1990; Moon and Prasad 1994; Evans
1995). Developmental realism has guided South Korea's security
practices in the Cold War period.
Central decision makers and the general public in South Korea have
understood its security environment to be anarchic and hostile. For
them, international politics is governed more by force than by
international law and morality. In the world of the strong the weak are
not spared. Koreans learned the iron law of survival of the fittest
through painful historical experiences: annexation under Japanese
colonial rule, national division by the Yalta agreement, and the
outbreak of the Korean War and its settlement through an unwanted
truce agreement. For them, North Korea's vow to liberate the southern
part of the peninsula by force and to implant a communist ideology
was real. Indeed, it was perceived as a threat to the very survival of
South Korea as a sovereign statenot only because of the bitter memory
of the Korean War and a series of military provocations by the North,
but also because of the North's formidable patrons: China joined the
Korean War as North Korea's ally; the Soviet Union patronized the
North throughout the entire period of Cold War confrontation. China
and the Soviet Union, then, were South Korea's explicit enemies
(Moon 1996a: chap. 3).
The conflict that threatened the security of South Korea was not
limited to the military domain. Beneath the military confrontation lay
the clash of ideology (Moon 1996a: chap. 5). North Korea had
adopted communism as its guiding ideology and attempted to
communize the South by force with the support of China and the
Soviet Union. Central decision makers in the South responded to
threats of communist expansion by devising their own security
ideology of chongryok anbo (total security). The new security
ideology was anchored in a combination of anticommunism,
nationalism, and buguk gangbyong (''rich nation, strong army") (Min
1973: 353-72). While anticommunism served as an ideological guide
for security practice, nationalism was instrumental in mobilizing the
general populace in the name of the supremacy of the nation-state
over individuals. The idea of buguk gangbyong was used to

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promote the program of military self-help through economic growth
and modernization.

2It was through this overarching ideology that the sacrifice of social,
economic, and political values was justified. Civil society was
reorganized, indoctrinated, and mobilized for security. A rigid
ideological template prevailed in the management of security
concerns.

South Korea's insecurity arose from the contest between two states
and two regimes for one nation. The contest for legitimacy has led to a
complex definition of security. Because North Korea has always
posed an acute threat to the South's sovereignty, the state itself has
been the primary referent of security. State security (kukga anbo) was
the ultimate goal in the South.3In actuality, however, state security
was often equated with regime security. Regime security occasionally
overrode state securitythat is, threats to the ruling regime were
considered threats to state security per se. In the name of state
security, domestic stability and unity were emphasized, political
opposition was prohibited, and civil liberties were repressed. The
National Security Law, which has governed the basic mode of
security discourse and practice, made the regime's security identical
with the state's security (Sohn 1989; Yoon 1990).
The metastructure of security practice in South Korea can thus be
epitomized in the following terms: a perception of international
anarchy; the state as the central referent of security; and the ideology
of total security. This is realism par excellence. One caveat is in order,
however. The rigid anticommunism and misuse of the label of
security for domestic political purposes undermined the realist nature
of Korean security practice. The emphasis on regime securityas
opposed to just national securityreduced the effectiveness and
flexibility of the security posture and also clouded the vision of a
peaceful resolution of the Korean conflict.
The institutional foundation of South Korea's security practice during
the Cold War era can be best understood in terms of developmental
statism, a theory designed to account for institutional determinants of
economic growth in East Asia including South Korea. (See Haggard
and Moon 1990; Amsden 1989; Wade 1990.) Its proponents attribute
the East Asian "economic miracle" to the region's peculiar state
structure, characterized by executive dominance, bureaucratic unity,
availability of policy instruments and resources and their strategic
allocation, and insulation of economic policy making from contending
social and political pressures. Developmental statism offers useful
insights into the dynamics of the domestic institutional arrangements
that underlie security practices in South Korea. Indeed, in the South
Korean context the idea of developmental statism was initially
conceived to describe the

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security arena and then applied to the management of economic
development (Jones and Sakong 1980; Kim 1992).
The most salient aspect of developmental statism is executive
dominance and bureaucratic unity. Security decision making during
the Cold War period was centralized in the hands of a few political
elites such as the president, the presidential staff, the Ministry of
National Defense, and the Agency for National Security Planning
(ANSP, formerly KCIA). Legislative intervention, bureaucratic
fragmentation, and politicization of security practice were virtually
blocked. The National Assembly was neutralized and the ruling
political party was subjugated to the state. The primacy of military
security in the hierarchy of national values left no terrain for
interagency rivalry and bureaucratic infighting. The military and the
security and intelligence organizations encountered no challenges
from other agencies in managing security affairs. The executive
dominance was a result of several factors: the constitutional
arrangement (a presidential system), an authoritarian mode of
governance, and the monopoly of information and expertise that lay in
the hands of the executive branch (Moon 1989; Moon and S. Lee
1995).
Another important feature is the strategic position of the security
sector in resource allocation. During the Cold War period, the military
was the largest beneficiary of the government's resources. More than
30 percent of the national budget was annually diverted to defense
during the 1960s and 1970s. Even the economic development strategy
was realigned to facilitate military self-help. In the mid-1970s, the
South Korean government initiated heavy-chemical defense
industrialization despite internal and external opposition and
skepticism. The big push toward heavy-chemical industrialization was
designed not only to cope with changing comparative advantage, but
also to produce forward and backward linkages to the defense
industrial sector (Moon 1991; Kim 1992). As a result of resource
mobilization, South Korea was able to accelerate the modernization
and improvement of its defense forces.
Security affairs had long been considered a sacred domain. Security
policy making was thoroughly shielded from political and civil
society. Threat perception and assessment were left solely to central
decision makers; strategic doctrines were formulated and
implemented without public debate. Weapons decisions, resource
mobilization, and the articulation of defense and foreign policies were
subject to neither legislative oversight nor public screening.
Dissenting views on security were not tolerated, and public
accountability and transparency imposed few constraints on security
practice. While the National Security Law and the Anticommunist
Law offered legal and institutional protection against political and
societal interference, the Military Secrecy Act

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blocked public access to information on security affairs. It was the
airtight insulation of security practice that enabled the speedy,
flexible, and effective formulation and implementation of security
policies by the South Korean government. The strong, autonomous
developmental state not only nurtured economic performance; it was
also essential to security practice.
If South Korea was to survive in the tough security environment,
effective external management was as critical as military self-help
because of the country's inherent military weakness. Its external
security management consisted mainly of maintaining and
strengthening its alliance with the United States. In a bipolar setting
where the other pole was backing the North, South Korea could not
help but rely on the United States. Within the framework of the U.S.-
ROK Mutual Defense Treaty, the United States indeed offered the
most credible deterrence against North Korean aggression. The U.S.
security commitment was more than a symbolic edifice. The United
States forward-deployed sizable combat forces composed of the
Second Infantry Division, the Seventh Air Force, and extensive
networks of communication and intelligence in South Korea, and
exercised command and control over the South Korean military. The
U.S.-South Korean military ties became further integrated with the
creation of the ROK-U.S. Combined Forces Command (McLaurin and
Moon 1989: chap. 7; Manwoo Lee, McLaurin, and Moon 1988: chap.
3). Given North Korea's military superiority and the unfailing support
it received from Beijing and Moscow, effective management of the
alliance with the United States was simply indispensable: any
reduction or withdrawal of U.S. forces would endanger South Korea's
security. Military deterrence through the alliance with the United
States, therefore, was the backbone of South Korea's external security
management during the Cold War, limiting the utility of other
alternatives.
The dominant security paradigm in South Korea limited the scope of
security to the military dimension. Other security issues were to a
great extent downplayed. Central decision makers and the general
public alike shared a belief that military threats from the North were
real and dangerous. History and the behavior of North Korea
supported that perception. Apart from the lingering memory of the
Korean War, covert and overt military provocations such as
skirmishes over the demilitarized zone, the commando raid on the
presidential mansion in January 1968, and frequent guerrilla
infiltration made military insecurity a fact of life for South Koreans
(Seok-soo Lee 1993). For all its growing importance, economic
security did not draw public attention because the South Korean
economy was not so deeply integrated into the international divi-

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sion of labor that its people felt vulnerable to the transmission of
external turbulence. Furthermore, extensive mercantile practices
minimized the public's fear of economic insecurity. As in most
developing countries, a preoccupation with economic growth diverted
policy makers' attention away from ecological issues including
environmental integrity. Occasional food shortages and the domestic
economic backlash from oil crises reminded South Koreans of the
urgency of ecological security, but such troubles did not overshadow
military security. Because of the lack of transnational intercourse,
such issues as organized crime, drug trafficking, and terrorism did not
emerge as prominent security concerns either.
In sum, then, the traditional security paradigm in South Korea evolved
during the 1960s and 1970s out of a confluence of realism and
developmental statism. The developmental realist paradigm seems
quite plausible given the structure of bipolar confrontation, formidable
military threats from the North, and a series of repressive authoritarian
regimes. Yet its viability and desirability have been increasingly
questioned. Domestic, regional, and international environments have
undergone a profound transformation since the mid-1980s. The advent
of a post-Cold War order, democratic opening and reforms, the
irreversible trends of globalizationall have entailed new constraints
and opportunities, signaling changes in the dominant security
paradigm.
Metastructure: Between Inertia and New Thinking
Have international systemic changes, democratic reforms, and
globalization brought about any changes in the metastructural
foundation of South Korea's security practice? The effects have been
mixed. Threat perception and the formation of a security identity have
undergone changes, but the ideological template remains intact.
Table 7 summarizes the new threat perception shared by defense
planners in South Korea (Ministry of National Defense [MND] 1995:
2-53). Central decision makers and military planners in South Korea
still consider North Korea the primary source of threats to its security,
but the threat no longer appears monolithic. It now depends on the
status of inter-Korean relations. The Ministry of National Defense
(MND) postulates three possible scenarios of inter-Korean relations:
confrontation, coexistence, and unification. As long as the
confrontation persists, the North is perceived as the primary source of
threats. China and Russia are no longer regarded as actual or potential
threatsa payoff of a new regional order and the end of the Cold War
system. South Korea has been able to normalize its diplomatic ties
with Russia and China

 Page 272
TABLE 7
South Korean Perception of Future Threats on the Korean Peninsula
Inter-Korean Nature of threats
developments
Confrontation* Explicit military threats from North Korea
* Conflict of national interests among regional actors
(China, Japan, Russia)
Coexistence * Continuation of North Korean military threats
despite progress in inter-Korean confidence-building
measures and arms control; problematic transparency
in North Korea's will and capability
* Regional actors could hinder inter-Korean
unification; increased interference by regional actors
expected (China, Japan, Russia)
Unification * Advent of unspecified threats
* Possibility of civil war with residual forces of North
Korea
* Potential territorial conflicts with regional powers
(China, Japan)
SOURCE: Ministry of National Defense 1995: 31.

since 1987 and has cultivated a broad range of exchanges and

political, economic, cultural, and even military cooperation. Conflict
of interest among regional actors is a source of serious security
concerns, but it does not seem to be insurmountable.
Under the scenario of coexistence, South Korea's insecurity could be
reduced because confidence-building measures and arms control will
enhance transparency, certainty, and stability. But South Korea's
defense planners appear to be less optimistic. They believe, with
history as a guide, that North Korea will fail to demonstrate its
transparency and accountability, destabilizing the Korean peninsula.
Regional actors will


 Page 273
not pose any direct and immediate threats to South Korea, but their
interference in inter-Korean relations could undermine the process of
reunification.
Surprisingly, South Korea's defense planners do not believe that
peninsular reunification will resolve its security dilemma. They
envision two potential threats to a unified Korea. One is internal, the
other regional. Korean unification is likely to follow the German
formulathat is, the South will absorb the North through the latter's
internal collapse. But South Korea could not expect a smooth takeover
of the North, such as occurred in Germany, because North Korean
ruling elites might resist by forming an exile government in northern
China or engaging in guerrilla warfare from within. Thus the
possibility of a transitional civil war cannot be ruled out. Although
South Korea's defense planners have been working on plans to deal
with contingencies, such developments could seriously jeopardize the
security and stability of a unified Korea (Song 1996; Moon and
Rhyoo 1996; Samsung Economic Research Institute 1996).

The regional security environment could develop into a much worse

situation (Chun 1996; MND 1995: chaps. 1-2). Long-standing
territorial disputes (over Tok Do with Japan, over the northern border
with China) could abruptly escalate into military conflicts with
regional actors. More critical is the structure of finite deterrence in the
East Asian region that is likely to emerge in the posthegemonic era
(Moon 1996a: chap. 4). The advent of the post-Cold War era will
foster U.S. disengagement from the region in the medium to long run,
leaving East Asia with a power vacuum in which Japan and China will
compete for regional hegemony. Japan's remilitarization, China's
ascension to regional hegemony, and the resulting regional instability
will produce a precarious security environment for a unified Korea
because of its defensive nationalism, which emanates from the bitter
memory of Japan's colonial domination and China's military
invasions. Korea, whether divided or unifiedwill not be free from
insecurity. Its geopolitical destiny has reduced the value of the peace
dividends promised by the end of Cold War. Lifting the Cold War
overlay from the East Asian theater is the equivalent of opening
Pandora's box, amplifying the scope of Korea's insecurity (Moon and
J. Lee 1995).5
Democratic transition and consolidation put an end to the ideology of
total security (chongryok anbo). Delegitimized and even discarded by
a growing number among the older and younger generations, it no
longer works as a deus ex machina. Democratic changes have
widened the spectrum of ideological diversity. Anticommunism, ultra-
right-wing nationalism, and the slogan of "rich nation, strong army,"
all of which

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embodied the dominant security ideology during the Cold War era,
have been under increasing attack. A progressive intellectual has
summed up the changing ideological mood: "The Roh regime is
Janus-faced. It has shown a procommunist face by actively seeking an
open door policy with communist countries while retaining an
anticommunist face for its own people....Now it is time for a change.
Our people's political consciousness has become mature, and there is
no need to be afraid of communist and socialist ideology. The
government should allow people to have access to it for study" (Hong
1988: 200-201).
The ideological offensive from the left-wing camp has intensified
(Cho and Kim 1989; Hong 1988; Hahm 1992). It has called for
extensive institutional reforms in security practice, including the
abrogation of the National Security Law, the Anticommunist Law,
and the Military Secrecy Act. The Agency for National Security
Planning and other state security agencies have become primary
targets of liberal attacks. Liberals have branded these security
organizations as anti-peaceful unification forces and have demanded
their immediate dismantling. Major policy realignments are called for
as well: a more conciliatory posture on North Korea, the withdrawal
of U.S. forces from the South, and the replacement of the Armistice
Agreement by a North Korea-U.S. peace treaty. These demands are
almost identical to those of North Korea. They defy the old security
ideology, calling it an instrument by which the military, the
technocrats, and the capitalist class have sought hegemonic
domination.
A more dramatic turn came with the inauguration of the Kim Young
Sam government in 1993. The Kim government appointed Han
Wansang, a leading liberal intellectual, as deputy prime minister for
national unification. Han's appointment was touted as a triumph for
the liberal cause. Despite a myriad of unresolved issues with the
North, he pushed for resuming inter-Korean dialogues and presented a
variety of incentives and concessions (Shin Donga, June 1993, pp. 74-
79). North Korea responded positively to South Korean proposals,
including one for the exchange of special envoys to make a
breakthrough in inter-Korean relations. But the breakthrough was
soon aborted. The conservative camp, which had remained dormant
during the initial period of democratic opening, staged a
counteroffensive. It criticized the progressive camp of being full of
pro-North Korean sympathizers and argued that North Korea has not
abandoned its ambition of communizing the South by force.
Conservatives charged that it was premature and even presumptuous
of them to tolerate socialist and communist ideology in the South.
North Korea is not East Germany, they said, and its juche (self-
reliance) ideology has not shown any sign of changing. Therefore,
they

 Page 275
continued, anticommunism should not be compromised. Such
compromise would endanger the very foundation of national security,
liberal democracy, and capitalism (Chul-seung Lee 1988: 210-21).
Hard-line bureaucratic agencies took advantage of this resurgence of
conservative ideology. The ANSP, the MND, the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs (MOFA), and even the presidential staff were not happy with
the liberal, progressive forces and formed a tacit coalition to deter
their growing influence on national security affairs (Mal, June 1993,
pp. 74-79). Under mounting pressure, Han was forced to step down.

6The old security ideology had prevailed, once again closing the
window of opportunity for liberal ideology.

There has been an important change, however, in the referent of

security. National security (minjok anbo) has emerged as a new
security identity comparable to state security (kukga anbo). In his
inaugural address on February 25, 1993, President Kim Young Sam
stated that "no allies can be better than the [Korean] nation. We are
ready to meet [North Koreans] any time and any place." (Donga Ilbo,
Feb. 26, 1993). In the following month President Kim stated further,
in his speech delivered at the commencement ceremony of the Korea
Military Academy, that the "new government has set its security
objective as embracing North Korea as a member of the same nation
and opening the new era with the entire nation" (Donga Ilbo, Mar. 5,
1993). The Ministry of National Defense immediately redefined its
security policy by expanding the scope of security from the physical
protection of South Korea to the preservation of the political and
territorial integrity of the entire Korean nation including North and
South Korea as well as overseas Koreans (MND 1995: 38). The
change is predicated, of course, on the realization of Korean
reunification. Still, it suggests a profound shift in the security
discourse in that it deviates from the earlier preoccupation with the
realist referent of state security.
Democratic changes have not, however, severed the symbiotic links
between state security and regime security. Whereas Park Chung Hee
and Chun Doo Hwan seized political power through military coups
and justified their authoritarian rule in the name of state security,
governments under democratic rule have used "state security" as a
tool for domestic political manipulation. The Roh Tae Woo
government skillfully exploited security issues such as nordpolitik and
rapprochement with North Korea to ensure its domestic political
legitimacy and popularity. Despite its earlier pledge not to politicize
security issues in general and inter-Korean relations in particular, the
Kim Young Sam government has become increasingly sensitive to the
domestic social and political mood in steering security practice. Kim's
continuing slide into a

 Page 276
hard-line position can be attributed partly to North Korea's
provocative behavior and partly to his domestic political calculus.
Seoul's tough responses have invited similar reactions from the North,
resulting in troublesome amplification of action-reaction and quasi-
crisis situations. At times of crisis, voters tend to be conservative,
favoring the ruling party. Getting tough on the North has proved to be
a safe bet in electoral campaigns.

7Ironically, then, democratic transition and consolidation have

furthered the politicization of security issues.

Democratization and the new post-Cold War order have not greatly
altered the metastructural terrain of security practice. Central decision
makers believe that South Korea has become more vulnerable than
ever, not only because of outstanding military threats from North
Korea, but also because of the broader insecurity emanating from the
newly emerging structure of finite deterrence in the region. The
security ideology is also trapped in the conservative closet. A
dramatic surge of liberal, progressive ideology following the
democratic opening did not last long, and the ideological pendulum
has swung back to the hard-line, conservative side. Unless North
Korea demonstrates convincing changes in its own security practice,
the conservative ideology will continue to dictate South Korea's
approach to security. Establishing national security (minjok anbo) as a
new security objective, however, signals a positive development. As
Korean unification approaches, such a conceptual shift seems
desirable. The demarcation between state security and regime
security, however, is still blurred. Democratic reforms have not
severed the links between the two. The metastructural foundation is
caught between the old inertia and new thinking (Moon and S. Lee
1995).
Recasting the Institutional Foundation
South Korea has been singled out as one of the most successful
countries in terms of security management as well as economic
performance (Azar and Moon 1988; Bobrow and Chan 1986). That
success has often been attributed to South Korea's developmental
statism: the state enjoys a great degree of strength and autonomy,
which facilitates the efficient, coherent, and consistent formulation of
policy and its effective and flexible implementation (Haggard and
Moon 1990; Moon and Prasad 1994). How have democratization, the
rise of the post-Cold War order, and globalization affected the state's
institutional foundation?
Executive dominance is still alive and well. The president and his staff
command enormous power over the formulation and implementation
of security policy. Despite the growing power of political parties and
the legislative branch, the chief executive is in full control of the

 Page 277
state's security machinery. In addition to the inertia stemming from
the imperial presidency of the past, the institutional arrangement
framed around the presidential system reinforces the concentration of
power in the hands of the president and his staff. One caveat should
not be ignored, however. Although the president still holds a tight grip
over the ruling New Korea Party, his control over the bureaucracy
seems to be waning. Democratic reforms have fostered the delegation
of power to bureaucratic agencies, creating a classic principal-agent
dilemma of coordinating policy between the Blue House and
bureaucratic agencies. The president's lack of commitment to, and
lack of expertise concerning, security affairs appears to aggravate
further the dilemma of security policy coordination (Chun and Chung
1994; Song 1995; Choi 1996; M. Lee 1996).
A loose vertical control over bureaucracy has in turn intensified a
horizontal competition among bureaucratic agencies, precipitating an
artificial compartmentalization within the government and a
fragmentation of bureaucratic consensus. Bureaucratic politics existed
even under the Park and Chun regimes. But since the democratic
transition it has become much worse, resulting in an erratic,
inconsistent, and unpredictable security posture. Division between
hard-liners and soft-liners has never been more pronounced than
under the Roh and Kim governments. Although bureaucratic
cleavages and subsequent political dynamics vary from issue to
issue, the National Unification Board (NUB) and the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs (MOFA) are generally the soft-liners, while the ANSP
and the MND form the core of the hard-line camp. The interagency
rivalry is shaped by the dynamic interplay of bureaucratic interests,
ideological orientation, and competition for loyalty (Song 1995: 259-
61; Moon 1996a: chap. 5).
Intensified bureaucratic infighting has defied the old myth of the
developmental state and bureaucratic unity. The NUB generally
favors a conciliatory posture on North Korea and calls for resumption
of inter-Korean dialogue. Management of inter-Korean interactions is
its raison d'être; without it, the NUB would not have any power and
influence. The MOFA's position is more variable than the NUB's, but
it has shown a tilt toward the soft-line posture. Its primary concern is
policy coordination with allies, especially the United States, and thus
its policy line is often influenced by the American position. When the
United States took a hard-line position linking North Korea's
compliance with international inspections to activation of inter-
Korean relations, the MOFA advocated the linkage option. As the
United States has favored a soft-landing policy on North Koreathat is,
stabilization of the situation in North Korea followed by gradual,
negotiated unificationsince the

 Page 278
signing of the Geneva Agreed Framework, the MOFA has softened its
hard-line rhetoric. Meanwhile, the ANSP and the MND have
consistently taken a hard-line posture. They argue that South Korea
should not seek reconciliation until the North shows signs of a
genuine change toward peaceful coexistence. This diversity of
bureaucratic positions has not only fragmented internal unity; it has
also sent conflicting signals to the domestic audience, the United
States, and even North Korea.

Several institutional mechanisms have been devised to reduce the

bureaucratic fragmentation and enhance interagency coordination: an
interministerial conference on unification policy coordination and a
consultative council on security policy, both headed by the deputy
prime minister for national unification; a high-level strategic
conference headed by the prime minister; and an interministerial
conference on national security headed by the president. These
institutional arrangements have not, however, resolved the problem of
policy coordination. Concentration of power in the Blue House, the
president's personalized style of security management, and the
overlapping boundaries of power and authority among cabinet
ministers have significantly undermined the process of consensus
building and policy coordination (Song 1995).
Since the democratic opening in 1987, the security sector has become
an apparent victim of resource allocation and mobilization. As Table 8
illustrates, defense expenditure accounted for 5.95 percent of gross
national product and 35.95 percent of government expenditure in
1980. Since 1990, however, reduction of the resource allocation to the
defense sector has been pronounced. In absolute terms, the size of the
defense budget has increased, but it has shown a rapid decline in
relative terms. The defense budget's share of GNP declined from 5.3
percent in 1985 to 4.35 percent in 1990 and to 3.26 percent in 1995.
Its share of government expenditure has also decreased: from 30.05
percent in 1985 to 29.3 percent in 1990 and 22.1 percent in 1995.
The defense sector can no longer be viewed as the primary beneficiary
of resource allocation. The relative decline of the defense sector is
apparent in less direct ways as well. During the 1970s and 1980s, the
defense tax was one of the major sources of finance for modernizing
and improving the armed forces. The contribution of the defense tax
was equivalent to 2 percent of GNP on average during the period. But
the tax was abolished in 1990. More important, the defense industrial
sector has been encountering hard times. In the 1970s, that sector had
nearly unlimited access to financial, material, human, and
administrative resources. The entire strategy of heavy-chemical
industrialization was initiated to facilitate defense industrialization.
Government procurement was virtually guaranteed. Since the mid-
1980s, however, the defense

 Page 279
TABLE 8
Changing Patterns of Defense Spending in South Korea (selected years)
Defense Budget
Year (in hundreds of Percentage of increase Percentage Percentage of
millions of won) over previous year of GNP total budget
1980 20,865 (37.61) 5.95 35.95
1985 36,892 (11.59) 5.30 30.05
1990 66,378 (10.40) 4.35 29.30
1992 84,100 (12.5) 3.72 25.30
1994 100,753 (9.3) 3.48 23.30
1995 110,744 (9.9) 3.26 22.10
SOURCE: Ministry of National Defense, Defense White Paper (various
issues).

industry has become a sunset industry with an average capacity

utilization rate hovering below 55 percent. Domestic market
saturation, regulation of third-country arms sales by the United States,
and declining domestic acquisition have been phasing out the defense
industrial sector. The government has not undertaken any serious
efforts to bail it out (Moon 1991).
Moreover, waning insulation of security policy making from
contending social and political pressures reveals the passage of time.
Electoral accountability, public opinion, and overall social and
political mood have become the new barometers for measuring the
direction of security practice. The mass media now constitute the
single most important factor in dictating security policy. Legislative
and bureaucratic intervention has also been on the rise. Although the
ruling New Korea Party maintains a majority in the National
Assembly, increased legislative oversight with the revival of the
national audit system has set new terms of engagement with the
executive branch. The defense sector has become vulnerable to other
bureaucratic agencies, as well, especially the Ministry of Finance and
Economy (MOFE). In 1990, for example, the MOFE, not the National
Assembly, cut the MND's defense budget request by 9.2 percent (677
billion out of 7.37 trillion won). The margin

 Page 280
of budget cuts varies from year to year, but it indicates that the
previous pattern of insulation no longer exists (MND 1995: 146).
The changing status of the military underscores a key aspect of the
domestic institutional transformation. The military has constituted the
mainstay of the South Korean security machinery and has occupied a
privileged and strategic position in politics and society. The South
Korean military intervened in civil politics and ruled for more than 25
years. Nevertheless, democratic reforms have been successful in
ensuring civilian control of security machinery by depoliticizing the
military. Kim Young Sam's reform politics overhauled the entire
military institution, removing intramilitary factionalism through the
purge of Hanahoi, the dominant military faction, undertaking a
sweeping anticorruption campaign within the military, and preventing
military interference in civil politics. The arrest of two former
generals-turned-president, Chun Doo Hwan and Roh Tae Woo, on
charges of treason and corruption has also sent shock waves through
the military, creating a formidable deterrent to future military
intervention in politics (Moon and Kang 1995). Democratic
consolidation has indeed civilianized the military and placed the
security machinery under civilian control.
In sum, the institutional foundation has undergone sweeping changes.
Democratization has realigned the developmental statism that has
governed domestic management of security in South Korea.
Autonomy and strength no longer characterize the state's institutional
configuration. Bureaucratic fragmentation, shrinking resource
allocation, and cracks in the protective shield of the security
management system have led to a new institutional contour. Although
the realist underpinning of its metastructure remains reasonably intact,
the domestic institutional foundation of the developmental state has
rapidly eroded. The mismatch between continuing realism and
weakening developmental statism necessitates a new security
paradigm in South Korea.
Between Alliance and Multilateralism: Managing External Relations
The demise of the Cold War system has not meant the end of history.
On the contrary, it begins the journey into an uncertain future for
South Korea. In their efforts to cope with two layers of external
threatspersistent military threats from North Korea, and the
unspecified threats that could result from a future regional order based
on finite deterrenceSouth Korea's central decision makers are
dwelling on two possible options. One is the strengthening of the
bilateral alliance with the United States; the other is multilateral
management through the

 Page 281
formation of East Asian security cooperation regimes. The alliance
option has been the cornerstone of South Korea's traditional security
practice; multilateral security cooperation is a relatively new venue.
Although the two options appear incompatible, a close examination
reveals that there are some complementary features.
Central decision makers still believe in the primacy of an alliance with
the United States in South Korea's management of its external
relations (MND 1995-96). The ROK-U.S. alliance is well structured
and credible. Despite an emerging asymmetry of threat perceptions
between the two nations, strategic interdependence still exists. The
United States has repeated its pledge to continue its security
commitment to South Korea (Department of Defense 1995; Moon and
Moon 1995; Kaufman 1996). Although defense planners in South
Korea do not see any immediate changes that might impair the
bilateral alliance, they have become increasingly concerned about
recent difficulties in policy coordination with regard to North Korea's
nuclear problem.
From the beginning, the United States defined the North Korean
nuclear quagmire as a global issue closely related to overall nuclear
proliferation. The North's possession of nuclear weapons was more
than an inter-Korean or regional security concern. It could have
jeopardized the Nonproliferation Treaty regime itself. To induce
North Korea's compliance with safeguard requirements of the
International Atomic Energy Agency as well as to prevent its
possession of nuclear weapons, the United States has considered a
wide variety of policy measures ranging from surgical strikes to
political, economic, and diplomatic incentives. After a series of tough
negotiations, the United States and North Korea finally reached a
compromise through the Geneva Agreed Framework in late 1994. As
a result, the Korea Energy Development Organization was instituted
to assist the development of nuclear power as an alternative energy
source in the North. The United States has also taken a conciliatory
posture toward the North not only by rendering tacit support of North
Korea's soft landing but also by allowing expanded social and
economic exchanges with the North (Bayer 1995; Cotton 1995; Moon
1996a: chap. 2).
By riding the crest of these new developments, North Korea has taken
a diplomatic offensive. In return for compliance with American
demands on the nuclear issue, North Korea has actively pushed for a
liaison office, the signing of a peace treaty, the promotion of
economic assistance and cooperation, and eventually full diplomatic
normalization with the United States. The North is aware, of course,
that its wish list cannot be easily realized. But it has taken some
daring tactical moves. To justify the signing of a peace treaty with the
United States, the North has

 Page 282
unilaterally abrogated the existing armistice agreement. That move
was predicated on the assumption that nullification of the armistice
agreement will oblige the United States to sign a peace treaty with the
North. South Korea has been totally excluded on the ground that it is
not a signatory to the armistice agreement. For all its implausibility,
the North is pushing for the treaty on two accounts. First, treaty
negotiations could serve as a critical pretext for public debates on the
reduction and withdrawal of American forces in the South. Second, it
might lead to a sense of South Korea's diplomatic defeat and isolation
(Moon 1996c).
The new development has heightened Seoul's anxiety. The South has
always wanted to contain the North Korea-U.S. rapprochement within
the bounds of inter-Korean relations. Failure to do so could pose a
serious liability to its domestic political maneuvering as well as its
foreign policy undertaking. But Washington has been seeking a more
independent posture in dealing with Pyongyangnot only because of it
places priority on management of the North Korean nuclear crisis, but
also because of Seoul's erratic and inconsistent policy behavior toward
the North. Policy coordination between South Korea and the United
States has been rare since the inception of the North Korean nuclear
crisis. When the United States was deliberating on punitive military
options toward the North in June 1994, South Korea was desperate to
block it. Since the Geneva Agreed Framework, the United States has
been tilting toward a soft-line posture favoring the North's soft
landing and increased bilateral exchanges and cooperation.

9South Korea has been almost hysterically critical of the U.S. stance.
To quiet the growing policy discord, Seoul and Washington have
recently proposed a four-party talk (South and North Korea, the
United States, and China) to discuss the peaceful settlement of the
Korean conflict and have attempted to place North Korea-U.S.
relations within the framework of such a talk. However, the proposal
has stagnated because of North Korea's rejection and China's
lukewarm attitude. North Korea's recent submarine incursion in the
northeastern part of South Korea has further complicated the
diplomatic entanglement, straining ties between Seoul and
Washington. Although such developments will not critically damage
the military alliance, they do cloud the future of bilateral relations.

Another source of concern is potential discord over the issue of

defense cost sharing in the intermediate term. The Clinton
administration has pledged its security commitment to the East Asian
region through the continuing pursuit of engagement and enlargement.
The U.S. commitment to South Korea can be understood in the same
context. Nevertheless, that commitment is contingent upon defense
cost sharing with U.S. allies in East Asia (Department of Defense
1995). Like

 Page 283
Japan, for domestic political reasons South Korea will find it difficult
to assume increased defense cost sharing. A tradition of free-riding in
the security domain, coupled with rising public expectations for
welfare and quality of life, will pose major barriers to sharing defense
costs in a way acceptable to the United States.
More critical are the long-term implications of the end of the Cold
War. Despite its explicit pledge, South Korea's defense planners do
not believe that the United States will be able to sustain its role as
hegemonic stabilizer in the East Asian region. Evaporation of the
principal U.S. enemy, mounting domestic pressure for social welfare
spending, and a rapidly diminishing defense budget are likely to
prevent the United States from continuing the current level of security
commitment to East Asia. The reduction and withdrawal of U.S.
forces in South Korea are coming to be viewed as simply a matter of
time. Regional instability followed by American disengagement could
considerably complicate South Korea's security environment in the
twenty-first century. It is in this context that some South Korean
defense planners advocate the continuing presence of U.S. forces even
after national unification. But finding a justification for that will not
be easy.
Emerging fears of a new regional anarchy as well as the influx of new
ideas have induced South Korea's central decision makers to look into
multilateralism as an alternative for external security management. In
the past, South Korea's quest for multilateral security cooperation was
confined to the resolution of the Korean conflict through the
involvement of regional powers. Seoul's favorable responses to earlier
proposalsin the early 1970s, Henry Kissinger's four-party talks and
cross-recognition; in the mid-1980s, James Baker's ''two plus four"
formulaexemplify such a trend. Since 1987, however, South Korea
has gone beyond the Korean issue by giving more attention to
collective management of East Asian peace and security. In October
1989 in his address at the United Nations, President Roh Tae Woo
proposed the establishment of a six-country consultative body for East
Asian peace. In May 1993, President Kim Young Sam emphasized the
importance of a multilateral security dialogue in the region in his
speech at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit
meeting. And in July 1994, Han Sung Joo, then minister of foreign
affairs, proposed the launching of a Northeast Asian multilateral
security dialogue in tandem with the ASEAN Regional Forum (Han
1995; Min-yong Lee 1996: chap. 9).
All of these proposals represent South Korea's growing effort to
resolve the Korean dispute and regional conflicts through security
cooperation regimes as well as to depart from sole diplomatic reliance
on the United States. South Korea wants to take its own initiative in

 Page 284
forming a new multilateral security cooperation regime similar to the
Conference on Security Cooperation in Europe. Accordingly it has
proposed several measures for regional military confidence-building
measures designed to enhance transparency, certainty, and strategic
stability among regional actors. Those measures include the exchange
of defense white papers, registration of conventional weapons at the
United Nations, regularized contacts among defense planners,
exchanges of military personnel and naval vessels, mutual cooperation
on nonmilitary matters, and active participation in U.N. peacekeeping
efforts (MOFA Korea 1995; Min-yong Lee 1996: chap. 9).
Simultaneously the South Korean government has been encouraging
civilian participation in multilateral security dialogues to develop an
epistemic community of multilateralism.

10

South Korea's external management reveals two seemingly conflicting

approaches. On the one hand, it still relies on the United States as its
ultimate ally and partner. On the other, South Korea is gradually
shifting toward multilateral solutions in resolving the Korean conflict
as well as the regional security dilemma. This can be seen partly as a
fallback strategy in light of the waning security guarantee provided by
the United States. But it can also be interpreted as a result of the
transmission of new ideas on multilateral security cooperation. In fact,
a community of experts on comprehensive security and multilateral
security cooperation regimes is gradually being formed in South
Korea (Moon 1996a: chap. 5). That in itself represents a significant
shift in South Korea's security discourse.
Exploring the New Security Agenda
Military security still tops the security agenda in South Korea (Han
1996). President Kim Young Sam himself made this clear by stating
that so long as military threats from North Korea do not disappear,
physical protection of its political and territorial integrity should
remain the South's number-one priority (Donga Ilbo, Apr. 20, 1996).
Democratization, the advent of a post-Cold War order, and
globalization have not changed the scope of security in a significant
way. Nevertheless, changes are taking place. As people's perception
of the security agenda changes, so too does the perception of central
decision makers (S. Lee 1995: 5380). A nationwide public opinion
poll conducted in 1989 by the National Defense University shows that
the largest segment of respondents (38.6 percent) cited social stability
as the top security concern, followed by national defense (26.5
percent) and political stability (18.9 percent). In another survey
undertaken by the same institution in 1995,

 Page 285
some 24 percent of respondents said that trade conflicts with advanced
industrial countries are the most serious threat to security while 24
percent cited the lack of international negotiation capability as another
source of insecurity. Only 23.5 percent felt that military threats from
North Korea were the top security concern (National Defense
University 1989, 1996). In a more recent survey, 52 percent cited
enhancing international competitiveness as the number-one security
concern, whereas 33 percent said that improving the quality of life
should be given top priority. Military self-help through increased
military power ended up a distant third (14.6 percent) in that survey
(Mok 1996).
Evidence of the shifting priorities in national policy is not limited to
expression of public perception. The government's resource allocation
has shown a similar tendency. During the third and fourth five-year
plans (1972-81), military self-help was given the top priority for
resource allocation, far exceeding economic development and heavy
industrialization. Since 1982, however, the defense sector has been
relegated to fourth and fifth place. Price stability and social
development were the number-one policy priority. During the seventh
five-year plan (199296), the top priority was given to efficiency
maximization of government expenditure, and limiting the growth of
the defense budget was singled out as a primary goal of budgetary
adjustment. Expansion of social infrastructure, promotion of the rural
sector, technology development, and social welfare and housing were
cited as important areas for resource allocation (Economic Planning
Board 1991).
Central decision makers have also begun to pay more attention to the
nonmilitary security agenda. President Kim Young Sam has set
economic security as a new area of policy emphasis. In the era of
globalization and infinite competition, strengthening international
competitiveness has become a new national mandate. Driven by
democratic forces, Kim has also elevated improvement of the quality
of life to a status comparable to military and economic security.
Recently he also declared himself an "environmental president" and
pledged to concentrate his policy efforts on the preservation of
environmental integrity (Environmental Protection Agency 1996).
Equally important are the ANSP's changing priorities in the area of
intelligence collection. The ANSP, the epitome of the national
security machinery in South Korea, has traditionally defined its
primary mission as early warning of North Korea's military attack
through the collection of political and military intelligence. But
recently the agency has radically expanded the scope of its activities.
The ANSP now engages in monitoring environmental conditions by
using its own equipment, including on-site and aerial inspections. It
has also set up new bureaus to handle

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organized crime, drug trafficking, terrorism, and computer hacking.
Economic security has emerged as one of its primary concerns. The
ANSP has not engaged in the collection of overseas economic,
industrial, and technological intelligence, but it has been collaborating
with the private sector on industrial counterespionage (Moon 1996b).
South Korea's experience shows that the security agenda is not fixed.
As national values change, depending on internal and external
conditions, the security agenda too is subject to variation. Facing
acute threats from the North, the South's military security still
occupies an important position in its security agenda. But it is no
longer monopolistic. Other nonmilitary security concerns are now
appreciated. Democratization, post-Cold War changes, and
globalization have entailed cascading security concerns, making the
management of South Korea's future security all the more difficult.
Concluding Observations
Our examination of South Korea's security practices suggests several
interesting implications. The state's stalled metastructure implies that
international and regional anarchy could be a self-contrived image
rather than an objective reality. No objection can be raised to South
Korea's perception of the North as a threat, but the way it portrays the
future regional order reminds us of the power of the realist paradigm.
No wonder the demise of the Cold War international system has not
brought about an end to realist thinking. Pursuit of power cannot be
justified without corresponding external threats, whether real or
contrived. South Korea presents a classic example in this regard. So
too does its ideology. Still, a positive development can be detected.
South Koreans are beginning to recognize that state security is not the
only definition of security. Growing public attention to the issue of
national security (minjok anbo), whether Korea is unified or divided,
could offer a valuable clue to the complex security dilemma on the
Korean peninsula. Finally, the type of regime does not matter.
Regardless of the regime, state security and regime security are
destined to be intertwined. Despite management backlash, however, a
democratic mode of governance is better. Although it might not be
able to sever the complex ties between state and regime, the
democratic regime will increase public accountability and the
transparency of security practice. It is simply a matter of
distinguishing between short-term losses and long-term gains.
The myth of developmental statism is shattered. While external threats
are amplified, the domestic institutional foundation is shrinking and
deforming. Bureaucratic fragmentation has undermined the coher-

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ence of security policy; failure to mobilize material and human
resources has weakened the capacity of security management.
Moreover, legislative intervention, penetration by diverse political and
social interests, and mass media sensationalism have virtually crippled
the security enterprise in South Korea. Executive dominance alone
cannot assure the formulation of efficient, coherent, and consistent
security policies and their effective and flexible implementation. The
political leadership's commitment, informed knowledge and expertise,
and sensible utilization of the presidential staff will be essential if the
waning institutional foundation is to be renewed.
If the realist logic of anarchy is assumed, security becomes a national
imperative. According to this line of reasoning, effective alliance
management with the United States should remain the primary
concern for the external management of South Korea's security. No
other alternative can be considered. But if cooperation is feasible, a
blind obsession with the alliance could become a hindrance to peace
and security. In this sense, South Korea's quest for multilateral
security cooperation is a welcome development. One caveat is in
order, however. Regional security cooperation should be sought as an
end in itself, not as an instrument to reach other ends. Otherwise, such
a move will engender negative boomerang effects.
The South Korean case teaches us a valuable lesson. The existence of
military tensions does not necessarily justify the primacy of military
security. Military threats are always prominent.

11 But economic, ecological, and social security concerns can be just

as pressing and vital as the military issue. In the new age of
globalization, a country's security performance cannot be judged
solely in terms of its military capability. Threats are manifold and
diverse, and they may endanger security in a synergistic manner.
Depending on military power alone is tantamount to committing the
fallacy of misplaced concreteness. Resilience, flexibility, and the
capacity to handle multiple threats are the new national virtues. If
South Korea has not yet fully arrived at such a realization, it is
prudently moving in that direction. The election of Kim Dae-jung as
president in December 1997 and the initiation of his political and
economic reforms to address the severe financial crisis that has
engulfed the country since October 1977 will further move South
Korean security practice in the direction argued in this chapter.

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8
Taiwan
In the Dragon's Shadow
Roger Cliff
Without national security, we have nothing....Only with security
can our prosperity be guaranteed.
LEE TENG-HUI

For the last fifty years, Taiwan's conceptions of security have been
defined by its relationship with mainland China. Given its size and
proximity, it is not surprising that China should dominate Taiwan's
concerns about external military threats, but even more important than
the physical juxtaposition of the two are their ethnic, cultural, and
historical ties. This relationship underlies not only questions about
external military threats to Taiwan but concerns about internal
security and nonmilitary threats as well. Only by understanding the
nature of Taiwan's relationship with mainland China can we hope to
comprehend Taiwanese conceptions of security.
Taiwan's association with China has long been ambiguous. The
original inhabitants of Taiwan were primarily Malayo-Polynesians
(who still make up about 1.7 percent of Taiwan's population
[Government Information Office 1993: 8-9]), and it was not until the
thirteenth century that significant numbers of Chinese settlers began
to arrive (Long 1991: 5). As late as the early seventeenth century,
when European powers attempted to establish settlements there,
Taiwan was still not formally administered by China and only about
25,000 Chinese were living on the island (Long 1991: 8-9; Copper
1990: 18-19). In 1662 the Ming loyalist Zheng Chenggong (Coxinga)
drove out the last remaining


 Page 289
European settlers and attempted to use Taiwan as a base for resistance
against the Qing dynasty. This led to a Qing invasion and the island's
incorporation into the Chinese empire as part of Fujian province in
1683 (Long 1991: 11-13; Copper 1990: 19-20). Taiwan remained a
frontier region of China, however, and as late as the middle of the
nineteenth century only about half of its population was Chinese
(Copper 1990: 21).
In 1895 Taiwan was ceded to Japan as part of the Treaty of
Shimonoseki, which ended the Sino-Japanese War. Japanese rule was
harsh and oppressive but resulted in considerable economic
development and modernization: indeed, by the time Taiwan was
recovered by the Chinese government at the end of World War II,
educational levels and standards of living were much higher in
Taiwan than in mainland China (Clough 1991: 815-17). A desire for
independence had existed in Taiwan even before the end of World
War II, but the exploitive nature of mainland Chinese rule after the
island was recovered in 1945 did much to increase those feelings,
which culminated in the uprising of February 1947. The Nationalist
government violently suppressed the rebellion, driving the movement
underground but further strengthening resentment of mainlander rule
and the desire for independence (Lai, Myers, and Wei 1991).
The question of Taiwan's national identity was further complicated
when the defeated Nationalist government led by Chiang Kai-shek
fled there in 1949. The Nationalist regime continued to call itself the
Republic of China (ROC) and claimed to be the legitimate
government of all China, including both Taiwan and the mainland.
For its part, the communist People's Republic of China (PRC) claimed
that Taiwan was part of its territory and was preparing an invasion of
the island in 1950. American intervention prevented the PRC from
occupying Taiwan, however, and allowed the Republic of China to
survive. As a result, two rival Chinese governments have existed
simultaneously, each claiming to be the sole legal government of their
combined territory (Clough 1991: 819-25).
As a consequence of this history, conceptions of security in Taiwan
have centered on the question of national identity and on Taiwan's
relationship with mainland China. The mainland government's
continued effort to assert sovereignty over the island means that
Taiwan's foreign policy concerns are dominated by the threat of
occupation by the PRC. Indeed, for some Taiwanese the fact that the
ROC itself was originally a government of mainlanders has meant that
Taiwan is already under occupation by an alien regime. Conversely,
for the ROC government the existence of a domestic opposition
movement based on

 Page 290
Taiwanese self-determination has meant that threats to its security
have been internal as well as external.
Other aspects of Taiwan's relationship with mainland China have
affected Taiwan's security as well. Ethnic and linguistic similarities
between the two have facilitated the rapid growth of economic and
social interactions in recent years. Coupled with the mainland's
geographic proximity these connections have resulted in a level of
interdependence that poses a variety of additional threats to the
security of life in Taiwan. In addition to potential overt actions by the
PRC government in the form of economic warfare or subversion,
these threats include the effects of social problems on the mainland
such as crime or drug trafficking. Thus Taiwan's relationship with
mainland China dominates not only the traditional security questions
of military attack or internal subversion, but even those issues
included under much broader definitions of security.
Taiwan's Political Transformation
After the Nationalist government fled to Taiwan, Chiang Kai-shek and
the Kuomintang (KMT) were able to maintain an unchallenged
monopoly on political power despite the Republic of China's
nominally democratic constitution. This monopoly was legitimized
through two devices. The first was a set of "temporary provisions"
enacted by the National Assembly in 1948 that gave the president
(Chiang) sweeping powers and exempted him and his vice president
from the two-term reelection limit (Sung and Ho 1986: 115). The
second was the Republic of China's continuing claim to be the
government of all China. This meant that national elective bodies,
particularly the National Assembly (responsible for electing the
president and amending the constitution) and the Legislative Yuan
(responsible for enacting laws), continued to be filled by
representatives of all regions of China. Because the mainland was
under Communist control, however, representatives from districts on
the mainland were not subject to reelection and were able to maintain
their seats indefinitely. These delegates were all loyal to Chiang and
the KMT; thus their presence guaranteed that Chiang (and later his
son, Chiang Ching-kuo) would be reelected regularly regardless of
popular support in Taiwan, and also that all legislation proposed by
the KMT leadership would automatically be enacted.
The KMT government used its emergency powers to exercise strict
censorship over the media and publishing and thus had a monopoly
not just on political power but also on the articulation of security
conceptions. As a result, prior to the 1980s a very narrow conception
of security

 Page 291
prevailed in Taiwan. The regime's primary concern was simple:
maintaining its position as the ruler of Taiwan. For propaganda
reasons, however, and because the security of its territory was a
prerequisite for the security of the regime, Taiwan's leaders spoke of
security in terms of the national security of the Republic of China.
But, because most of China was under Communist control, in practice
the "Republic of China" consisted only of Taiwan and a few small
islands. The identification of national security with that of the regime
limited the scope of security to the political-military dimension. Two
major threats to the regime were perceived: external invasion and
internal subversion. The one significant external threat was the PRC,
which maintained its goal of "liberating" Taiwan; the regime was also
concerned about internal threats in the form of the self-determination
movement or communist subversion.
The KMT's approach to defense against external attack by the PRC
consisted of maintaining a high level of military preparedness and a
formal defense alliance with the United States. Taiwan's indigenous
defense capabilities were sufficient to ensure that the island could not
easily be conquered; the alliance with the United States ensured that
an attack on Taiwan would involve the PRC in a war with the United
States. Internal security was maintained on the one hand by tight
political control and on the other by efforts to increase the legitimacy
of KMT rule. The former included a ban on contact with the
mainland, restrictions on political activity, and intense surveillance of
the population. The latter included a land reform program that forced
landlords to trade their landholdings for stock in government-owned
industries (giving them a stake in Taiwan's economic development
while defusing resentment of unequal landownership), a relatively
high degree of freedom in economic matters, and a program of
recruiting potential opposition leaders into the KMT (Clough 1991:
827-49).
By the late 1970s, however, new challenges to Taiwan's security were
emerging as the utility of these policies began to diminish. Internally,
rising income levels had resulted in a better-educated and more
assertive population who had time for concerns other than day-to-day
subsistence. Demands for democracy and self-determination grew
stronger, resulting in riots in Chungli and Kaohsiung in 1977 and
1979. Although the initial response was a tightening of political
control, it was clear that domestic opposition could be contained only
by ever more repressive measures (Clough 1991: 857, 869-71; Tien
1989: 95-98). Externally, meanwhile, Taiwan was becoming
increasingly isolated. When the People's Republic was first
established, most nonsocialist countries refused to establish relations
with Beijing and continued to

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recognize the ROC as China's government (Clough 1991: 826). As
late as 1970, more countries recognized the ROC than recognized the
PRC and Taipei continued to occupy the "China seat" in the U.N.
General Assembly and Security Council. By 1971, however, the PRC
had finally acquired enough support in the United Nations to replace
the ROC as the representative of China, and the change signaled a
rapid downward slide in Taiwan's international status. By 1978 only
22 countries still maintained diplomatic relations with Taipei and
Taiwan belonged to only a handful of intergovernmental organizations
(Kim 1994: 151, 160).
Most significant, at the end of 1978 Taiwan's chief protector, the
United States, announced that it was normalizing relations with the
PRC and terminating its mutual defense treaty with Taiwan. Although
the U.S. Congress subsequently passed a "Taiwan Relations Act" that
declared a continuing U.S. interest in Taiwan's security, the
commitments the act contained were less binding than those in the
previous Mutual Defense Treaty (U.S. Public Law 96-8, 1979).
Whether the United States would actually come to Taiwan's defense
in the future would be contingent on such factors as the geostrategic
circumstances and public opinion in the United States. At the same
time as it normalized relations with the United States, however, the
PRC initiated a program of economic reform on the mainland,
creating an image of a China that was rapidly liberalizing and
westernizingin contrast to a rigid, unchanging Taiwan. As a result, by
the mid-1980s it was unclear which way public sympathies in the
United States would lie in the event of a conflict between Taiwan and
the mainland. That question was further highlighted when, in 1982,
the United States signed a communiqué with the PRC in which the
United States announced that it would begin reducing its arms sales to
Taiwan (Beijing Review 1982: 14-15).
Concurrent with the deterioration of U.S. security guarantees was a
renewed political offensive by the PRC. At the same time as they
were normalizing relations with the United States and launching their
reform program, China's leaders dropped their earlier rhetoric about
"liberating" Taiwan and announced instead that their goal was
"peaceful unification." Under an arrangement termed ''one country,
two systems," PRC leaders declared that after reunification Taiwan
would become a highly autonomous "special administrative region" of
China and would be allowed to continue to practice its capitalist
economic and social systems. According to this formula Taiwan
would be permitted to maintain economic, cultural, and social ties
with other countries, but not formal diplomatic relations (Ye 1981: 1;
Deng 1986: 25-26). Because at that point Taiwan had official relations
with only 22, mostly insignificant, countries (the major exceptions
being South Korea, Saudi

 Page 293
Arabia, and South Africa), the "one country, two systems" proposal
appeared to be well on its way to becoming a reality, and there was
reason to be concerned that Taiwan would eventually no longer be
recognized as an independent entity in the international system.
The KMT leadership's initial response to these internal and external
developments was to tighten internal political controls and explore
alternatives to dependence on U.S. military protection (Lai To Lee
1991). But no substitute for the United States existed, and it was
unclear for how long domestic opposition could be suppressed
(Clough 1991: 871). As a result, by the mid-1980s serious threats
were emerging to Taiwan's ability to remain an independent state and
to the KMT's ability to remain the ruler of that state. Although the
threats had not yet reached crisis proportions, there was reason to be
concerned about the long-term future.
Two additional developments around the same time added to the
pressures created by Taiwan's international isolation and rising
domestic opposition. The first was the changing composition of the
ruling KMT party. Although originally it had been almost exclusively
a party of mainlanders, by the 1980s the same recruitment programs
that had been used to increase the KMT's legitimacy and co-opt
potential opposition leaders had resulted in a party whose membership
was predominantly native Taiwanese. But that predominance was not
reflected in power sharing: the highest positions in the party and
government, including the presidency, continued to be controlled by
mainlanders (Tien 1989: 37). Thus by the 1980s a significant
imbalance had emerged between party membership and political
power within the KMT, and a new generation of leaders were pushing
for reforms that would allow them to take advantage of their local
political bases and popular appeal.
A second development that helped trigger changes that ultimately
affected conceptions of security in Taiwan was the sudden
appreciation of Taiwan's currency. In the early 1960s a fixed
exchange rate had been established for the new Taiwan dollar (NTD)
that favored Taiwan's export-oriented development strategy. By the
1980s, however, that exchange rate was producing persistent annual
trade surpluses, particularly with the United States, that reached more
than $10 billion by 1985 (Council for Economic Planning and
Development 1995: 4, 192, 198). Consequently the United States
began pressuring the government to reduce the surpluses (Lin Tung-
hsiung 1987: 57-58; Tien 1989: 21-22). Taiwan's dependence on
American goodwill for protection against the PRC meant that it had
little choice in the matter, and the NTD was allowed to appreciate by
some 40 percent from the end of 1985 to the end of 1987 (Council for
Economic Planning and Development 1995:

 Page 294
4). This sudden appreciation, however, caused Taiwan's exports to
become markedly more expensive almost overnight. For those labor-
intensive industries whose competitive advantage was based on cost
and which were already under pressure from rising wages in Taiwan,
this meant it was necessary to relocate operations to a less expensive
production site. The logical choicefor reasons of geographic
proximity, cultural and linguistic similarity, and the family
connections that are central to the Chinese way of doing businesswas
mainland China. As a result, by the mid-1980s Taiwanese businesses
were lobbying the government to lift its ban on commerce with
mainland China (Independence Evening Post 1987: 2; Southerland
1988: A19).
In response to this combination of internal and external pressures, in
March 1986 the leadership of the KMT, led by President Chiang
Chingkuo, decided to initiate a process of political reform that began
with lifting martial law and legalizing opposition parties in July 1987,
and ending the ban on travel to mainland China in November 1987
(Nathan and Ho 1993: 31-61; Yang 1987: 2; Tien 1989: 13-14, 111-
12). These changes had far-ranging implications for conceptions of
security in Taiwan. Their initial motivation, however, was simply to
preserve the security of the regime. Externally they were expected to
strengthen Taiwan's security against the PRC threat by improving
Taiwan's image abroad, broadening support for the regime in the
United States, and increasing sympathy for its claim to an independent
existence in the international community. Internally the moves were
expected to improve the regime's security by defusing domestic
opposition and reducing resentment of the KMT's political monopoly.
By allowing the opposition to participate in the political process, the
KMT diminished the likelihood of a violent confrontation at some
point in the future (Nathan and Ho 1993: 40-44).
Lifting the prohibition on visits to mainland China was closely related
to the decision to implement political reforms. Continuing the ban
would have been inconsistent with the general easing of social
controls that the KMT leadership hoped to use to appease domestic
opposition and improve Taiwan's image abroad. Moreover, having
embarked on the path toward democracy, Taiwan's leaders knew that
if they were to maintain the security of their position in power they
would have to be more responsive to popular demands. The ban on
mainland travel was widely unpopular and was an important point of
attack for the opposition (Huang 1987: 3).
Aside from the arguments against maintaining the prohibition,
however, there were also reasons why allowing people to travel to
mainland China would contribute positively to the security of the
regime. By 1986

 Page 295
the KMT knew that living conditions in Taiwan were vastly superior
to those on the mainland. Allowing Taiwanese to see for themselves
how much better off they were under KMT rule was expected to
reflect well on the party, boosting its prestige and justifying its past
authoritarianism. In the competitive elections it would face in the
future, the KMT's record of success in governing Taiwan would help
it to maintain its position as the ruling party (Mooney 1987: 30-31).
Lifting the ban on mainland travel was expected to contribute to the
security of the ruling party in another way. After 38 years of enforced
separation, the vast majority of Taiwan's population had never been to
mainland China and had little sense of identity with their mainland
counterparts. Because the KMT's position in power was based on its
claim that Taiwan was part of China (in contrast to the nativist
opposition, which argued that Taiwan was an independent nation),
such a sense of identity was vital if the party was to have the popular
support needed to win competitive elections. Party leaders hoped that
allowing people to visit mainland China would reinforce for
Taiwanese their identity as Chinese, not just Taiwanese, and thus
strengthen the party's base of support (Huang 1987: 3).
Although lifting the prohibition on travel to mainland China
contributed to the regime's security in a number of ways, it also had
important symbolic implications. Allowing people to travel to
mainland China tended to suggest that a state of emergency vis-à-vis
the Communists no longer existed, and thus undermined the
legitimacy of the "temporary provisions" and mainland delegates in
Taiwan's elective bodies by which the regime ensured its monopoly
on power. It was for this reason that the domestic opposition
movement was particularly vocal in its criticism of the ban, but it
meant that the capable younger generation of KMT leaders, who stood
to benefit from a more representative political system, had reason to
support the lifting of the travel ban as well (Independence Evening
Post 1987: 2).
The legalization of opposition parties and the lifting of martial law in
1987, although intended to increase the security of the regime by
improving Taiwan's image abroad and defusing one of the political
weapons of the Taiwanese nationalists, allowed the opposition to
increase the intensity of its attacks on the KMT as an undemocratic
clique of outsiders. If the KMT were to continue to enjoy the benefits
of its concessions, therefore, it had to respond to those attacks by
implementing further reforms that would transform the KMT into a
party whose leaders had local bases of popularity.
The first major step in this direction occurred with the death of Chiang
Ching-kuo in January 1988, which provided the opportunity for

 Page 296
ascension to the presidency by a native Taiwanese, Vice President Lee
Teng-hui. Once Lee Teng-hui's native Taiwanese faction had secured
its position within the KMT, he was able to repeal the temporary
provisions and announce the retirement of the mainland deputies in
Taiwan's elective bodies (Lam 1991: 1).

1These devices had been used by the KMT's mainland leaders to

justify their monopoly on power, but they had become a liability for
the party and they were not needed by the party's native Taiwanese.

Thus the ultimate result of the mid-1980s regime's efforts to maintain

its security was clear: while the KMT preserved its position as the
ruling party of Taiwan, the government and its relationship to the rest
of the nation were radically transformed. Once a highly autonomous
regime with interests distinct from those of the nation as a whole, the
KMT has become a locally based government much more directly
accountable to its people. This transformation has had a profound
effect on conceptions of security in Taiwan.
New Conceptions of Security
Democratization has had two important effects on Taiwanese
conceptions of security. First, the legalization of opposition parties
and the lifting of martial law meant that for the first time alternative
voices can be heard, breaking the ruling party's monopoly on the
articulation of security conceptions. Second, democratization has
forced the ruling party itself to become more responsive to popular
demands, and in doing so the party has altered its own definitions of
security. These changes have resulted in broader and more openly
contested conceptions of security.
Referent of Security
Both changes are evident with regard to the referent unit of security. It
is clear from the publications of the Taiwanese government that for
central decision makers the primary referent unit of security is still the
nation-state, the Republic of China (National Defense Report Editorial
Group (NDREG) 1994: 59-66). Others, however, argue that
alternative referent units of security may also be valid. One example
can be seen in the concept of "international security," which is said to
apply when the security of one country is interdependent with that of
others. Such a referent unit is said to be more appropriate when states
are members of alliances or international organizations (Taiwan
Research Fund 1989: 21). Observers writing in Taiwan also recognize
the existence of dangers that threaten the security of "all nations or
even all of humanity." These

 Page 297
problems are said to be "true" international security problems. They
include the proliferation of nuclear weapons, international terrorism,
economic crises, environmental destruction, and the spread of
epidemic diseases. These are described as global problems that are
beyond the ability of a single nation to solve but that "universally
threaten the security of every nation and even every person" and thus
require international cooperation for their elimination or reduction
(Taiwan Research Fund 1989: 21-22). This wording suggests a
concept of global security in which the entire world (or "all of
humanity") is the referent unit, rather than the nation-state.
In general, however, few question the government's assumption that
the nation is the fundamental referent unit for security. Instead, debate
centers on the identity of the nation, which again involves the issue of
Taiwan's relationship with mainland China. Despite the termination of
the state of emergency with the Communists and the reconstitution of
Taiwan's elective bodies, Taiwan's government still calls itself the
Republic of China and the nation's territory is still said to consist of
not just Taiwan but also mainland China (Government Information
Office 1993: 3).

2 Even more broadly, the Chinese nation is conceived of as embracing

all people of ethnic Chinese descent throughout the world and Chinese
political culture requires that national leaders claim to be acting for
the good of the entire Chinese people. Even after the reform of
Taiwan's elective bodies, about 5 percent of the seats in the National
Assembly and Legislative Yuan are reserved for representatives of
overseas Chinese (Government Information Office 1993: 65).

This broad conception of the nation is strongly disputed by Taiwanese

nationalists, who argue that the nation consists solely of Taiwan and
the other small islands under the control of Taiwan's government. For
them Taiwan's separation from mainland China for all but four of the
last hundred or so years has created a distinct national identity that is
unique to Taiwan and not shared with mainland China. Mainland
China is regarded as a foreign country outside the boundaries of the
Taiwanese nation (DPP Central Headquarters Election Strategy
Committee 1995: 34-40).3
Emphasizing Taiwan's distinctness from mainland China is not an
argument for a conceptualization of security in terms of ethnicity,
however. The primary ethnic division in Taiwan is that between
"native Taiwanese" (benshengren)-people whose ancestors arrived
from China prior to the Japanese occupation in 1895and
"mainlanders" (waishengren)those who arrived after the recovery of
Taiwan in 1945 and their offspring.4Although benshengren are
primarily southern Fujianese in origin and often distinguish
themselves from waishengren by

 Page 298
the use of the Minnan dialect, benshengren also include a significant
minority of Hakka

5and generally do not consider themselves to share an identity with

other southern Fujianese (or Hakka) populations in mainland China or
elsewhere. (Fujianese and Hakka are strongly represented in the
overseas Chinese communities of Southeast Asia.) Although some
extreme Taiwanese nationalists might wish to expel the waishengren
(Yang 1987: 2; Jeff Hoffman 1990: 1) most advocates of
independence argue that Taiwan's separation from mainland China for
the last half century has resulted in a distinct cultural and national
identity that is shared by all of Taiwan's residents, regardless of
ethnicity (DPP Central Headquarters Election Strategy Committee
1995: 1).

Similarly, waishengren, if they do not describe themselves as

Taiwanese, will invariably identify themselves as Chinese, rather than
in terms of a particular sub-Chinese ethnic group that includes only
part of the populations of both Taiwan and mainland China. Thus,
although ethnic differences divide Taiwan internally, the division has
not resulted in the advocation of transnational or subnational ethnic
groups as the proper referent unit for security. The dispute centers
solely on the issue of whether the "Taiwan" or "China" is the proper
identity of the nation.
In practice, of course, the area under the control of the ROC
government is still limited to Taiwan and a few small islands and,
despite its rhetoric, since 1949 the ROC has rarely pursued policies
intended to protect the security of parts of China not under its
control.6Hence the debate about the identity of the nation is primarily
symbolic. The advent of democracy, however, has forced the
government to be more sensitive to the views of those who consider
their primary identity to be Taiwanese. Thus Taiwan's government
now claims that, though it strives for the good of all 1.2 billion
Chinese, the interests of the 21 million residents of Taiwan take
precedence (Mainland Affairs Council 1994: 25-26).
Taiwan's democratization has affected the referent unit of security in
another way, however, by altering the relationship between the
regime's security and national security. Prior to the 1980s the
fundamental goal of KMT policies was regime security, not national
security. National security was a prerequisite for regime security, but
the regime also pursued policies, such as suppression of opposition,
whose goal was to protect the regime, not the nation (although such
policies were always justified in terms of national security).7With
democratization, "national security" can no longer be used as a code
word for regime security, but in practice the two are more closely
coincident: the accountability that democracy requires places a regime
that is seen as putting its own security ahead of national security at
risk of being voted out of office. If

 Page 299
it wishes to remain in power, the ruling party must be seen as giving
national security the highest priority. Thus the principal referent unit
of security in Taiwan today is now the nation, not the regime.
Scope of and Threats to Security
Democratization and the replacement of regime security by national
security have also affected the scope of security in Taiwan. When
security is defined in terms of the government's ability to perpetuate
itself as the ruler of a state, security conceptions naturally accord
priority to the political-military dimension. Once the referent unit is
expanded to include the entire nation, however, other dimensions may
be recognized. Moreover, democratization means that the people of a
nation are able to articulate the specific values that they wish to have
protected. This has occurred in Taiwan. One independent treatise, for
example, describes the primary goal of national security as "protecting
the national interests of survival, freedom, and economic prosperity"
(Taiwan Research Fund 1989: 17-18). Similarly, along with more
traditional missions such as "preventing or defeating an enemy attack"
and "ensuring territorial integrity and the exercise of sovereignty," the
government's National Defense Report lists the goals of national
defense as including the maintenance of economic prosperity and
social stability (NDREG 1994: 61).
Nonetheless, the political-military security of the state is seen as a
prerequisite for the achievement of other security goals. For example,
the same work that asserted that the fundamental goals of security are
survival, freedom, and prosperity also argues that "the traditionally
understood interpretation of national defense is the basis and bottom
line for national security" (Taiwan Research Fund 1989: 19).
Similarly, the National Defense Report lists preventing or defeating an
enemy invasion as the "most important goal" of national defense,
while maintaining economic prosperity, social stability, and so forth
are listed as "other" goals (NDREG 1994: 61).
The obvious reason for this hierarchy is the existence of an eminent
military threat to Taiwan. Mainland Chinese leaders have repeatedly
declared that their long-term goal is the "recovery" of Taiwan, and
they have explicitly stated that they do not rule out the possibility of
using force to achieve this goal (People's Daily 1979: 1). Most
Taiwanese have little confidence in the PRC's promises of local
autonomy and believe they would lose their prosperity, freedom, and
personal security under PRC rule (Mainland Affairs Council 1994: 4-
5). If anything, Taiwan's democratization has increased the severity of
this threat by giving Taiwanese an even greater stake in preserving
their present way of life.

 Page 300
As a result, the maintenance of Taiwan's existence as an independent
nation is seen as essential to the achievement of other security goals.
In this sense the traditional realist conception of the state as guarantor
of the welfare of its citizens appears to be an accurate description of
perceptions in Taiwan (Morgenthau 1985). And with one of the
world's largest armed forces separated from Taiwan by a mere 90
miles of water, the military threat to the state is very real.
Even if it were unable to take control of Taiwan through military
means, mainland China is seen as threatening to Taiwan's security in a
number of other ways. Even an unsuccessful attempt to invade the
island would put the personal and economic security of its inhabitants
at risknot only as a direct result of the destruction but also because
most of Taiwan's financial and intellectual capital would likely flee at
the first sign of hostilities. Indeed, the PRC could use military force in
forms other than an invasion attempt, such as missile attacks or a
blockade, in an effort to force Taiwan to accept political unification
(NDREG 1994: 63). Regardless of whether such efforts were
successful, the loss of life and the economic damage could be
enormous. As a result, the possibility of armed attack by the PRC is
considered the primary threat to Taiwan's security (NDREG 1994: 59-
61).
The perception in Taiwan is that the PRC is also using other means in
pursuit of its goal of political unification with the island. These
include "dividing and subverting Taiwan internally," "diminishing
Taiwan's international status," "weakening Taiwan's economic
power," and ''breaking down the psychological defenses of Taiwan's
military and civilians" (NDREG 1994: 63). Although these measures
are intended to reduce Taiwan's ability to resist the PRC's political and
military pressure to accept unification, they threaten aspects of
Taiwan's security even if they do not succeed in bringing about that
result. In the area of "dividing and subverting Taiwan internally," for
example, the PRC is believed to have several thousand secret agents
example, the PRC is believed to have several thousand secret agents
operating in Taiwan (Luo 1993: 4; Lu 1993: 2). Although their main
purpose is believed to be sabotage and sowing panic in the event of a
crisis, they have also been accused of encouraging Taiwanese
separatism (Lu 1994: 4).

8 In addition to making Taiwan vulnerable to external attack, such

actions threaten Taiwan's social order and increase the threat to the
security of the state posed by internal conflict.

"Diminishing Taiwan's international status" refers to the PRC's efforts

to prevent states and intergovernmental organizations from
recognizing Taiwan. This is part of Beijing's campaign to enforce its
legal claim that Taiwan is part of the territory of the PRC and to
prevent Taiwan from forming alliances or joining collective security
organi-

 Page 301
zations that could protect it from military attack, but it affects
Taiwan's security in other ways as well. For example, Taiwan's
inability to participate in international organizations such as the World
Bank, International Monetary Fund, Interpol, World Health
Organization, or the Montreal Convention on Chlorofluorocarbons
(CFCs) works to the detriment of the economic, environmental, and
personal security of its citizens. Similarly, PRC efforts at "weakening
Taiwan's economic power" would obviously affect Taiwan's
economic security. "Breaking down the psychological defenses of
Taiwan's military and civilians," by undermining confidence in the
future, could affect Taiwan's social stability and economic security as
well.
Another PRC effort that affects Taiwan's nonmilitary security consists
of attempts to promote the economic and social integration of Taiwan
and mainland China. Since 1979 the PRC government has
implemented various policies designed to encourage commercial and
other interactions between Taiwan and the mainland. These have
included tariff exemptions for Taiwanese imports, tax holidays for
Taiwanese investors, and concessionary lodging and transportation
rates for Taiwanese tourists (Zhuang 1991: 84-101; Mainland Affairs
Council 1992a: 1-5, 23-25, 31-33, 95-99, 116-48; South China
Morning Post 1988: 8). Although one aim of such policies is to
increase Taiwan's interdependence with the mainland and heighten the
sense of identification with China on the part of Taiwan's residents,
they also have the effect of making Taiwan more vulnerable to
potential economic warfare by the mainland.
In this last regard, however, even more profound than the effect of
PRC policies has been that of Taiwan's legalization of travel to the
mainland, which vastly accelerated the growth of interdependence
between Taiwan and mainland China. The mainland has now become
Taiwan's second-largest export market (after the United States), taking
nearly a fifth of Taiwan's exports, and Taiwanese businesses have at
nearly a fifth of Taiwan's exports, and Taiwanese businesses have at
least $11 billion (by some estimates more than $25 billion) of direct
investment in mainland China.

9By contrast, mainland China depends on Taiwan for only about 2

percent of its export earnings and has no direct investment in Taiwan
(Liang'an jingji tongji yuebao 1995: 44, 56). Thus an embargo or
seizure of assets by the PRC would be much more damaging to
Taiwan (at least in the short run) than any actions Taiwan could take
against the mainland.

Economic reforms in China and democratization in Taiwan also mean

that because of its size, proximity, and economic backwardness,
mainland China poses threats to Taiwan's nonmilitary security for
reasons other than the deliberate designs of the PRC government. One

 Page 302
concern is that Taiwan will be overwhelmed by a flood of economic
migrants from the mainland, where per capita incomes are roughly
one-twentieth of those in Taiwan. Such migrants threaten both
Taiwan's economic prosperity and its social order (Central News
Agency 1987: V1).

10 The mainland is also seen as the source of much of Taiwan's

growing crime and drug problems: the majority of illegal narcotics
reaching Taiwan are said to arrive from mainland China; most
automobiles stolen in Taiwan are believed to wind up on the
mainland.11 In addition to the direct consequences of these crimes, the
cross-straits criminal organizations that have arisen in response to new
smuggling opportunities are themselves a threat to public safety and
social order.

All of these problems have increased dramatically since the changes

of 1987 (United Daily News 1989: 3). The number of illegal
immigrants from mainland China apprehended each year, for
example, increased from 762 in 1987 to 5,626 by 1990 and has
averaged more than 4,000 per year since then (Liang'an jingji tongji
yuebao 1995: 41). To some extent the migration is due to the ongoing
breakdown of social controls in mainland China, but it is primarily a
result of Taiwan's democratization and opening to the mainland.
Frequent contact with Taiwanese visitors since Taiwan's opening to
the mainland has enabled people in mainland China to acquire a much
better idea of the employment opportunities available for them in
Taiwan (and perhaps has provided Taiwanese businesspeople and
gangsters an opportunity to actively recruit mainland labor), while
Taiwan's democratization has meant that the government's control and
monitoring of society have diminished radically, making it far easier
for illegal immigrants to operate without detection. Thus, by altering
Taiwan's relationship with mainland China, Taiwan's democratization
and opening to the mainland have broadened the nature of the
mainland's security threat to Taiwan as well.
Aside from mainland China, the other two main threats to Taiwan's
security are considered to be "territorial separation" and regional
conflict (NDREG 1994: 59). Although it is primarily internal in
origin, territorial separation (which refers to the Taiwan independence
movement) is also an aspect of Taiwan's relationship with mainland
China. If the opposition party were to take control of the government,
for example, and issue a declaration of independence, in addition to
possibly provoking military or economic attacks by the PRC it might
also result in a violent reaction from those in Taiwan who strongly
believe that the island is part of China (NDREG 1994: 62). Serious
domestic upheaval would affect the personal safety, economic
prosperity, and political freedom of Taiwan's populace and threaten
the security of the state as a whole.12In addition,

 Page 303
of course, it would weaken Taiwan's ability to resist external military
attack (Voice of Free China 1991: 71).
Not all threats to Taiwan's security are perceived as related to
mainland China, however. The possibility of other conflicts in the
region affecting Taiwan is also a concern (NDREG 1994: 59-61).
Potential scenarios could include military action on the Korean
peninsula or a clash over competing claims in the South China Sea.
Such conflicts could involve Taiwan simply because of the island's
geographic proximity to the fighting or because Taiwan is perceived
as supporting one of the combatants. Or, in the case of the South
China Sea, it could even involve a deliberate attempt by one of the
claimants to seize territory controlled (or claimed) by Taiwan. Perhaps
even more important than the military threat represented by regional
conflict, however, would be the threat to Taiwan's economic security.
As a country dependent on seaborne trade for almost 40 percent of its
gross national product, Taiwan is extremely vulnerable to any
disruption of shipping in the regionwhich could occur with conflict
either in the South China Sea or on the Korean peninsula (Council for
Economic Planning and Development 1995: 1, 3).
Approaches to Security in the 1990s
Writings on security in Taiwan emphasize its relative naturethat is, the
impossibility of being absolutely secure against all possible threats.
All nations represent some degree of threat to each other. Even if no
dangers existed at a particular moment, events such as advances in
military technology or regime changes in another country could occur
at any time. Thus the best that can be hoped for is to minimize the
severity of the various threats against a nation (Taiwan Research Fund
1989: 18-20). That security is relative can mean something else,
howevernamely, that measures taken to enhance one type of security
may put another at risk. When a unidimensional conception of
securitysay a regime's political-military securityis adopted, this
problem does not occur. But when multidimensional conceptions are
employed, the task of determining which security policies are optimal
becomes more complex.
Taiwan's approaches to security in the 1990s reflect the changes in
Taiwan's politics and relationship with mainland China that have
occurred since 1987. Approaches to security in Taiwan are now based
on the nation, rather than the ruling regime, as the primary referent of
security; they acknowledge economic prosperity and social stability,
not just military-political security, as goals of security policy; and
they recognize the new threats represented by mainland China and
other

 Page 304
states as a result of these changed definitions and Taiwan's
transformed relationship with the mainland. At the same time,
changes in Taiwan's politics and relationship with the mainland have
led to new approaches to securing its redefined goals.
Although the scope of security has been broadened to include
economic and social dimensions, the nation's military-political
security continues to be regarded as the prerequisite for security in
those other dimensions. And because the principal threat to political-
military security remains armed attack by the PRC, military defense
remains the central goal of Taiwan's security policy. The two primary
means for achieving that goal remain unchanged. The first pillar of
Taiwan's defense strategy is a strong indigenous defense capability.
Taiwan's armed forces consist of nearly 400,000 active duty personnel
and 1.7 million reserves, out of a total population of 21 million.
Representing more than 70 percent of the adult male population
between the ages of 18 and 32, armed forces of such a size can be
maintained only through universal conscription: all physically able
males 18 or older are expected to provide two years of active military
service and to maintain reserve availability until the age of 30
(International Institute for Strategic Studies 1995: 192; Government
Information Office 1993: 51). Taiwan's defense expenditures are
correspondingly high, amounting to more than $11 billion in 1994.
That figure represented 4.7 percent of Taiwan's gross domestic
product, a greater proportion than most countries in the region
devoted to defense (International Institute for Strategic Studies 1995:
192).

13

The second pillar of Taiwan's defense strategy has been its security
relationship with the United States. Taiwan's forces alone are
probably incapable of fending off the PRC military indefinitely in the
event of a protracted effort by the mainland,14 and the PRC could
inflict great harm on Taiwan even without invading the island. The
potential responses of other countries, therefore, are an important part
of Taiwan's ability to deter such attacks. In addition, Taiwan's military
depends on purchases of advanced armaments from abroad to
maintain its technological edge over the PRC. Because it is the only
nation with the power and commitment to protect Taiwan's security,
the United States plays a central role in both these areas.
Because the Taiwan Relations Act contains no unambiguous
guarantees, however, maintaining good relations with the United
States is essential to ensuring American protection. The traditional
means for achieving good relations with the United States have been a
close economic relationship,15careful cultivation of key opinion
makers and members of Congress, appeals to anticommunist
sentiments in the

 Page 305
United States, and submissiveness to U.S. demands in matters such as
trade policy, protection of intellectual property rights, and trafficking
in endangered species (Sciolino 1996). Indeed, U.S. pressure to allow
Taiwan's currency to appreciate was partly responsible for the
government's decision to open to mainland China.

16

To these traditional approaches to cultivating relations with the United

States must now be added Taiwan's democratization. That Taiwan is
now a more or less fully democratic country has significantly
increased sympathy in the United States for its plight (Sciolino 1996).
Whereas it is unclear whether the U.S. public would have supported
military intervention on Taiwan's behalf in the mid-1980s, there is
little doubt which side U.S. public opinion would favor today.
Taiwan's carefully publicized democratization, along with the more
negative images of the PRC that have prevailed since the Tiananmen
massacre of 1989, has resulted in a marked transformation of how the
two countries are perceived in the United States.17
Even though the United States is the only country likely to intervene
militarily in the event of an attack by the PRC, Taiwan's relations with
other countries are also important to its security against such an
attack. The reduction of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan as a result of the
1982 agreement between the United States and PRC, for one thing,
means that Taiwan is constantly seeking alternative sources for
armaments.18Even more important, however, are the potential
economic and diplomatic responses by various Asian and Western
countries to an attack by the PRC. Although these countries would not
themselves intervene militarily in such an event, their attitude and
support would influence the likelihood of the United States taking
military action (NDREG 1994: 64-65). Moreover, other nations could
themselves apply a variety of diplomatic or economic sanctions
against the PRC. Japan, for example, has reportedly indicated to
China that it would cut off economic aid and impose a trade embargo
against the mainland if Taiwan were to be invaded (Economic Daily
News 1988: 1). Taiwan's leaders believe that Western European
nations would contemplate similar sanctions against China (NDREG
1994: 65).
The degree of international support for Taiwan against the PRC would
depend on the extent to which individual national interests were
affected, as well as on public opinion in Asia and the West. Aside
from its strategic location in the region, Taiwan's primary importance
to Asian and Western countries is economic. Taiwan is Japan's third-
largest trading partner and export market, for example, and had $29
billion in trade with Europe in 1994. Together Japan and Europe had
nearly $10 billion in investments in Taiwan by the end of 1994
(Council for

 Page 306
Economic Planning and Development 1995: 207, 248). For Southeast
Asia, Taiwan is both an important trading partner and a vital source of
foreign investment.

19 The currently high degree of interdependence with Asia and the

rest of the world is a direct result of Taiwan's open economic policies.
Although those policies are in place primarily for economic reasons,
they have also given the world a significant economic interest in
Taiwan's security.

In addition to its economic links with Asia and the West, since the
political reforms and redefinition of its relationship with mainland
China in the late 1980s Taiwan has been engaged in an active
campaign to increase its diplomatic and political involvement in the
international system. In 1986 Taiwan had official diplomatic relations
with only 23 countries and belonged to only one significant
intergovernmental organization, the Asian Development Bank (Kim
1994: 151; Yearbook of International Organization 1986: L3344). The
reason for Taiwan's relative isolation was that both the PRC and the
ROC insisted on exclusive recognition. Countries that established
relations with the PRC were required to sever relations with Taiwan
(and vice versa), and neither would participate in an
intergovernmental organization if the other was a member. Given the
PRC's greater size and importance, the eventual result was Taiwan's
exclusion from most bilateral and multilateral relationships.
Beginning in 1988, however, Taiwan began to change its position on
dual recognition. The first instance was the Asian Development Bank
(ADB), which the PRC had joined in 1986 without being able to force
Taiwan's expulsion (Kim 1994: 160). Initially Taiwan had refused to
participate in ADB activities as part of its policy of having no contacts
with the PRC, but in 1988 Taiwan's leaders decided to send a
delegation to the annual meeting in Manila (Yang 1988: 69-71). This
marked the beginning of a new campaign of "flexible diplomacy"
(tanxing waijiao) under which Taiwan dropped its objection to dual
recognition of the PRC and ROC by nations or intergovernmental
organizations (Yin 1990: 1).
Coupled with increased efforts at improving Taiwan's international
status, flexible diplomacy has contributed to Taiwan's security in three
ways. First, it has resulted in a modest increase (to about 30) in the
number of countries that maintain official diplomatic relations with
Taiwan. Although the new additions are all small, uninfluential
countries, they nevertheless strengthen Taiwan's legal claim to
statehood. PRC leaders are unlikely to feel constrained by arguments
about Taiwan's status that rely on international law, but the fact that
Taiwan is recognized as an independent state could influence public
opinion in

 Page 307
other countries, particularly Western democracies (even those that do
not themselves recognize Taiwan), and make them more likely to
support Taiwan's position in the event of conflict with the PRC.
Second, the willingness to participate in international organizations of
which the PRC is also a member (under a name acceptable to Beijing
such as "China, Taipei") has enabled Taiwan to continue to participate
in the Asian Development Bank and avoid PRC opposition to its
joining two more important intergovernmental organizations: Asia-
Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the World Trade
Organization (WTO).

20Although it participates in those organizations as an "economic

region," not as a sovereign state, doing so allows Taiwan to increase
its economic interdependence with Asian and Western nations and to
strengthen its unofficial political ties with them. Third, flexible
diplomacy has enabled Taiwan to take the offensive in lobbying for
membership in other intergovernmental organizations, particularly the
United Nations. Even unsuccessful efforts to join such organizations
call attention to Taiwan's existence as a de facto independent state,
increasing the likelihood that international public opinion will favor
Taiwan in the event of conflict with the PRC.

Taiwan's ability to pursue flexible diplomacy is the result of the

redefinition of its relationship with mainland China in the late 1980s.
As long as the regime's monopoly on power was premised on its claim
to be a government of all China that had "temporarily" lost control of
portions of the country to Communist rebels, Taiwan could not pursue
a foreign policy based on acceptance of the Communist regime's equal
claim to being a government of China. Once the ROC ended its
pretense of being representative of all China, however, and
acknowledged that it controlled only the Taiwan area, it was no longer
necessary to deny the existence of the "mainland authorities" as a
regime of equal status, and a more practical diplomatic stance could
be employed.
Despite its successes in reducing Taiwan's diplomatic isolation, the
flexible diplomacy policy has been strongly criticized by the
Taiwanese opposition. The opposition argues that Taiwan's efforts to
establish diplomatic relations with other nations and
intergovernmental organizations are unsuccessful because of the
government's "one China" policy, under which, although it permits
dual recognition, the ROC continues to claim to be a government of
China. Not only does this make other nations less likely to recognize
Taiwan, it also amounts to tacit admission of the PRC's claim that
Taiwan is China's internal affair, legitimizing its possible use of
military force. The opposition argues that Taiwan's efforts to improve
its diplomatic standing would be more successful if they were
conducted in the name of Taiwan, rather than

 Page 308
the Republic of China (DPP Central Headquarters Election Strategy
Committee 1995: 32-45).
Another important new weapon in Taiwan's efforts to increase
international support has been its democratization. As in the United
States, Taiwan's democratization means that public opinion in other
democracies is now much more likely to favor Taiwan in the event of
conflict with the PRC. Although for economic and geostrategic
reasons most governments continue to maintain relations with the
PRC in preference to Taiwan, if the PRC were to attack Taiwan the
general publics of Western democracies would likely put pressure on
their governments to apply economic and diplomatic sanctions against
the mainland (NDREG 1994: 65).
Aside from military force, of course, the PRC could also use
economic warfare against Taiwan. Possible actions include seizure of
Taiwanese assets on the mainland or a trade embargo against the
island. Originally the potential impact of such actions was limited by
the ban on contacts with the mainland. The 1987 decision to allow
family visits, however, initiated an easing of controls on interactions
with the mainland that has made Taiwan much more vulnerable to
economic warfare by the PRC. Nonetheless, significant restrictions on
commerce with the mainland remain, the most important of which is
the ban on direct shipping and air links between Taiwan and mainland
China. The prohibition is partly for military reasonsheavy cross-straits
traffic would reduce the warning time available in case of a surprise
attackbut it is also intended to limit Taiwan's economic dependence
on the mainland (DPP Central Headquarters Election Strategy
Committee 1995: 47).

21 Restrictions also exist on the types of mainland industries in which

Taiwanese businesses can invest (although they are difficult to
enforce) and on the mainland products that may be imported. These
policies are partly for economic reasonsto avoid promoting industries
that compete with Taiwan's own manufacturingbut are motivated also
by concerns about strengthening a potential enemy or becoming
dependent on the mainland for vital imports (Shaw 1989: 5; Yang Li-
yu 1990: 6). Another government policy has been to encourage
Taiwanese businesses to direct their investment away from the
mainland and toward Southeast Asia (Huang 1993: 2).

Some might argue that an increased level of interaction with mainland

China actually contributes to Taiwan's security: the closer the links
between Taiwan and the mainland, the greater the cost to the mainland
of any military or economic action against the island. After all,
Taiwan is now mainland China's second most important source of
direct foreign investment and its fourth-largest trading partner
(Liang'an jingji tongji

 Page 309
yuebao 1995: 4446). Thus, although Taiwan has become more
vulnerable to economic warfare by the PRC, the potential cost to
mainland China has also increased significantly. Few, however, doubt
that the PRC would be willing to pay such a price. But allowing
greater interaction with the mainland may benefit Taiwan's security in
another way. When the ban on visits to the mainland was first lifted,
Taiwan's leadership justified the move as a "political
counteroffensive" against the Chinese Communists (United Daily
News 1987: 2; Lin Hung-lung 1987: 2; Southerland 1987: A1; China
Times 1988: 2; United Daily News 1988). Allowing people on both
sides of the Taiwan Straits to see how much better life was in Taiwan,
they argued, would bring about the collapse of communism in
mainland China. Although this rhetoric was primarily a way of
justifying a change in policy that was made for other reasons, in light
of the events in Eastern Europe in 1989 the role of capitalist cultural
influences in undermining socialism should not be dismissed. Taiwan
is just one of the external influences on mainland China; but as a self-
governing, democratic, Chinese state it plays a unique role in
demonstrating the types of political organization that are possible
within Chinese culture. Thus, although greater contact since 1987 has
made Taiwan more vulnerable to economic coercion by the PRC,
those contacts may in the long run contribute to China's
transformation to a more democratic society that would be less likely
to use force against Taiwan (Doyle 1995: 97, 1983).
Taiwan's government has also made efforts to limit the other types of
threats the mainland represents to Taiwan, particularly the threat to its
social stability. The ban on direct shipping and air traffic, in addition
to its other purposes, has the effect of limiting the impact of the
mainland's crime and drug trafficking on Taiwan. Similarly, the
government has so far opposed the importation of mainland laborers,
preferring instead to permit the contracting of workers from the
Philippines or Thailand, even though linguistic and cultural
similarities suggest that mainland workers could be more efficiently
employed. This policy is pursued not only because such laborers
might include Communist agents sent to subvert Taiwan, but also
because the cultural and linguistic similarities of the mainland
workers would enable them to escape from their work sites and blend
into the local population, where their illegal status would make them
more likely to become involved in crime (Mainland Affairs Council
1992b; Tsai 1993: 1).
Aside from actions by mainland China, the other factors considered to
be significant threats to Taiwan's security are territorial separatism
and regional conflict (NDREG 1994: 59-61). The principal strategy
for preventing separatism has been democratization. Providing the

 Page 310
opposition with the opportunity to compete with the ruling party on an
equal basis and allowing the question of national identity to be
debated openly have greatly reduced the possibility of internal conflict
over the issue. Although Taiwan's population remains divided over
the issue of national identity, the existence of a democratic process
does much to ensure that a consensus may someday be reached in a
peaceful and rational way.
With regard to regional conflict, the same military preparations that
Taiwan undertakes to prevent attack by the PRC also defend it against
attack by other nations. Taiwan's ability to prevent regional conflicts
that could affect it would also be improved by participation in
regional security organizations such as the ASEAN Regional Forum
(ARF) or the Council on Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific
(CSCAP), and Taiwan's leaders have expressed a desire to join such
organizations (Central News Agency 1992: 56, 1993: 75). The PRC's
objection, however, has restricted Taiwan's membership in these
forums.

22

Beyond the Realist Paradigm

Taiwan's relationship with mainland China is central to the political
changes that have occurred since 1986 and remains fundamental to
current conceptions of security in Taiwan. For example, one of the
strongest pressures that contributed to the leadership's 1986 decision
to implement political reformsTaiwan's diplomatic isolationwas due to
the efforts of the mainland government, which claims that both
Taiwan and the mainland are part of the People's Republic of China.
A similar claim by the ROC government that it is the government of
all China gave rise to internal pressure from the opposition. That
opposition stemmed partly from a belief that Taiwan is not a part of
China and therefore the ROC government was a regime of foreign
intruders but also simply from resentment of the unrepresentative and
undemocratic government that was legitimized by the claim that
Taiwan is part of a greater China.
Recognition of this latter sentiment was the reason for the KMT's
policy of recruiting local leaders into the party, which became another
source of pressure for political change in the 1980s. A final pressure
for political change came from the desire of Taiwanese businesses to
have closer economic ties with mainland China. That desire, in turn,
was an indirect product of Taiwan's need for U.S. protection against
invasion from the mainland. Such considerations compelled Taiwan's
leaders to give in to U.S. pressure and allow Taiwan's currency to
appreciate. The

 Page 311
desire for closer economic relations was also a product of Taiwan's
cultural and linguistic ties to mainland China.

23

The political changes that have taken place since 1986 have
fundamentally altered conceptions of security in Taiwan, but the
relationship with mainland China continues to be central to the new
conceptions. The prominence of that relationship is evident in disputes
within Taiwan over the identity of the nation-state, which is taken to
be the primary referent of security. The government behaves as if the
nation consists only of Taiwan and other ROC-held islands, but it
continues to claim that it represents all of China. The opposition, by
contrast, argues that the nation is limited solely to Taiwan. Taiwan's
relationship with the mainland is also the primary reason for the
consensus on the nation-state as the principal referent of security.
Beijing's claim that Taiwan is part of the PRC represents a universal
threat to all of Taiwan. Given this common threat, the survival of the
nation-state is crucial for protecting the Taiwanese way of life. For the
same reason, although threats to other aspects of Taiwan's security
exist, military-political security is considered more fundamental than
the economic or social dimensions.
Taiwan's relationship with mainland China features in virtually every
security threat to Taiwan. The PRC leadership's ideas about the proper
relationship between Taiwan and mainland China create the constant
threat that the mainland might invade or otherwise use force against
the island. The PRC could also use economic warfare to enforce its
claim, and the potency of that weapon is increased because of the
close ties that have arisen as a result of the cultural, linguistic, and
familial relationships between Taiwan and the mainland. Those
relationships (along with the close geographic proximity) also mean
that potential threats to Taiwan's security from the mainland have
origins other than the deliberate acts of the PRC governmentfor
example, cross-straits crime, drug trafficking, and illegal immigration.
Similarly, many of Taiwan's efforts to protect its security center on
the relationship with the mainland. The policy of flexible diplomacy,
for example, is based on the idea that although Taiwan and the
mainland are both part of a single Chinese nation, the two separate
parts are under the jurisdiction of different governments. This
represents a break from the earlier claim that all of China was under
the jurisdiction of Taiwan's government. Likewise, efforts to protect
Taiwan's economic security consist of policies to limit its economic
relationship with the mainland. At the same time, increasing
interactions with the mainland are seen as contributing to Taiwan's
security in the long run by hastening the transformation of the
mainland polity into something that more closely resembles Taiwan.
Finally, Taiwan's democratization has contributed to

 Page 312
its security by modifying the government's claimed relationship to
mainland China and permitting debate about what that relationship
should be.
The fact that Taiwan's conceptions of security center on its
relationship with mainland China does not make them easy to define.
The relationship has both material and ideational aspects: the former
include geographic proximity and the huge difference in power
between Taiwan and the mainland; the latter involve the question of
national identity. Perhaps because both material and ideational aspects
are involved, it is difficult to explain Taiwan's security conceptions in
terms of a single paradigm, whether realist, liberal, or constructivist.
Rather, they reveal features of all three. For example, much of
Taiwan's behavior is consistent with a classic realist perspective.
Faced with a major military threat, Taiwanese regard the nation-state
as the basic referent unit of security and regard political-military
security as more fundamental than other types. Similarly, the principal
approaches to security are the traditional policies of defense
preparation and alliance-building. More broadly, Taiwan's growing
diplomatic isolation in the 1970s can also be explained in (structural)
realist terms as being the result of the Soviet Union's achievement of
strategic parity with the United States and consequent U.S. overtures
to China to balance the Soviet threat.
The means Taiwan has used to maintain its close relations with the
United States, however, cannot readily be explained in terms of
realism. Once the Soviet Union achieved strategic parity, the United
States should have completely abandoned Taiwan for the benefit of
better relations with mainland China. Instead the United States
continued to support Taiwan even after it had normalized relations
with the PRC. Taiwan's close relations with the United States may
originally have been based on military considerationsthe island was
MacArthur's ''unsinkable aircraft carrier"but later they came to depend
on ideology: first a common anticommunism and now a shared
commitment to democracy.
Nor does the realist perspective explain Taiwan's approach to
improving its relations with other Asian and Western nations.
Although Taiwan's economic links with those nations give them a
greater interest in preserving the island's autonomy, according to the
realist perspective Taiwan's democratization and efforts to establish its
claim to statehood under international law should be irrelevant to the
likelihood of other countries taking action on Taiwan's behalf. Most
significant, the actions Taiwan's leadership expects these states would
take are primarily nonmilitary (NDREG 1994:64-65). The implicit
assumption that the PRC's involvement in the world trading system
limits its ability to use force against Taiwan fits better with theories of
complex interdepend-

 Page 313
ence under which the use of force is subordinated to other instruments
of international relations (Keohane and Nye 1977).
Taiwan's own economic relationship with mainland China is also
inconsistent with a purely realist perspective. The appreciation of
Taiwan's currency that helped precipitate the 1987 decision to open to
the mainland was a result of Taiwan's dependence on the United
States for military security; but according to neorealists such as
Kenneth Waltz, states should seek to minimize their interdependence
with countries that are potentially threatening (Waltz 1979). Instead
Taiwan's government has allowed economic ties with the mainland to
expand dramatically. Although Taipei recognized the dangers of such
a policy, the decision was made anyway, because of pressure from
business and the general public. The choice of a policy that is
detrimental to a state's security as a result of competing interests
within the state contradicts the realist assumption of states as unitary,
rational actors and is more consistent with liberal theories of
international relations. Moreover, Taiwan's government has justified
its decision to open to the mainland by claiming that increased trade
and other interactions with Taiwan will lead to the transformation of
the mainland Chinese state into a more pluralist form. This notion,
contrary to realism, is consistent with liberal ideas about the
democratizing effects of trade and the unlikelihood of warfare
between liberal democracies (Doyle 1995, 1983).
The threats to Taiwan's security, too, are difficult to explain in purely
realist terms. Now that the KMT no longer represents a significant
security threat to the Communist regime, the mainland government's
efforts to extend its control to Taiwan cannot be justified as an attempt
to protect its own security. An alternative explanation might be Robert
Gilpin's theory of hegemonic expansion (Gilpin 1981: 106-55). But
although cultural and linguistic similarities mean that Taiwan could be
more easily controlled than other small countries on China's
periphery, and the ambiguity about Taiwan's status means that the
international community would be more likely to accept the PRC's
dominion over Taiwan, the PRC's efforts to recover Taiwan seem to
go beyond a simple attempt to maximize power and wealth. The
PRC's quest to unify with Taiwan cannot be explained without
reference to Chinese ideas about the importance of political unity and
the restoration of an empire that was dismembered by foreign powers
(MacFarquhar 1991: 875-81; Garver 1993: 2-28).
Conversely, note that Japan is not currently considered a threat to
Taiwan despite its possession of an air force and navy comparable in
capabilities to the PRC's and economic and technological capacities
that far exceed mainland China's. From a realist perspective that
focuses on

 Page 314
capabilities, there should be little difference in the degree to which
China and Japan are regarded as security threats to Taiwan. Taiwan's
defense preparations are aimed solely at mainland China, however,
and Japan is not viewed as a current security concern. This attitude
can be explained only in terms of ideational factors such as Japan's
current aversion to using military force and its lack of a territorial
claim on Taiwan.

24

Ideational factors must also be invoked to explain the internal threat to

Taiwan's security. Few in Taiwan wish to unify with the PRC regime
on the mainland, and there is little practical difference (other than
potential PRC reactions) between a de facto independent Taiwan that
claims to be part of a greater Chinese nation and one that does not.
The national identity question, therefore, is essentially a symbolic
issue. But the potential for internal conflict over the issue is
nonetheless very real, as is the possibility of a PRC attack provoked
by a purely symbolic change in Taiwan's status.
Consequently, although they contain certain features that resemble the
realist model, Taiwan's conceptions of security cannot be adequately
explained by the realist paradigm. Indeed, the very feature that is most
responsible for the "realist" aspects of Taiwan's conceptions of
securitythe PRC threatresults not from realist mechanisms such as the
security dilemma or hegemonic expansion but from purely
constructed ideas about Taiwan's proper relationship to mainland
China. Similarly, Taiwan's approach to security is also based on
constructed identitiesin this case Taiwan's identity with the Western
world as a democratic, capitalist nation. The way Taiwan conceives of
its security, therefore, cannot be fully explained by theories that refer
only to objective conditions such as the distribution of power in the
international system. Taiwan's conceptions of security can only be
understood in terms of subjective ideas about the identity of the nation
and its relationship to mainland China.

 Page 315

SOUTH ASIA

9
Bangladesh
A Weak State and Power
Iftekharuzzaman
We don't want to wage war against anyone. We are a peace-aspiring nation
that
wants to establish friendship with every other nation. But we must also have
the
capability to defend ourselves. We believe in peaceful coexistence and in
global
peace. We demand that instead of spending on arms, the rich nations of the
world
should invest resources in people so that the scourge of poverty is eliminated
from
the world....But our own imperative is to become self-reliant.
SHEIKH MUJIBUR RAHMAN

The epigraph, a quotation from the founder of the nation, illustrates

the comprehensive and multidimensional definition of security in
Bangladesh.

1 The weakness of Bangladesh as a state and its many domestic and

international vulnerabilities account for Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's
(hereafter called Mujib) emphasis on peaceful coexistence,
noninterference by outsiders in the country's internal affairs,
elimination of poverty, and economic emancipation as the paths to
national security. The same spirit is reflected in Article 25 of the
Bangladesh Constitution, which stresses "the principles of respect for
national sovereignty and equality, noninterference in the internal
affairs of other countries, and respect for international law and the
principles enunciated in the United Nations Charter."2Article 25 also
declares that Bangladesh will "strive for the renunciation of the use of
force in international relations," a policy that essentially seeks to
enhance the country's security with the support of the international
system. It further upholds the right of all peoples to determine and
build up their own social, economic, and

 Page 316
political systems by means of free choice. This provision reflects the
country's historical experience as a neocolonial state and at the same
time affirms its commitment to reject constraints on ideological
choices in postindependence Bangladesh. This conception of security
has prevailed since independence with some minor modifications to
accommodate changes in the geopolitical context, national
imperatives, and regional and international developments.
This chapter delineates Bangladesh's conception of security, focusing
mainly on security as perceived by the central decision makers of the
state. It also analyzes the response of those decision makers to the
security demands of subnational groups. In discerning the conception
and approach to security, the analysis focuses on the nexus between
internal and external threats and examines the geopolitical context of
the country. After considering the main sources of insecurity, the
chapter explores Bangladesh's approaches to security. Throughout I
have tried to highlight the enduring as well as the changing elements
by reference to specific issues and developments.
Sources of Insecurity
Threats to the national security of Bangladesh fall into three broad
categories: geopolitical threats, the weakness of the state, and external
factors.
Geopolitical Threats
Apart from its border of 283 kilometers with Myanmar (Burma) in the
southeast, Bangladesh is bordered on three sidesnorth, east, and
westby India. Its opening to the Bay of Bengal (a coastline of about
414 km) is also virtually cordoned by India. That concave seacoast is
also responsible to a great extent for the disputes with India and
Myanmar arising from overlapping claims in the sea. Indeed,
demarcation of borders remains one of Bangladesh's outstanding
problems. Disputes with India include the ownership claims to the
newly surfaced island of South Talpatty/New Moore / Purbasha in the
estuary of the border river Hariabhanga.
Two other aspects of Bangladesh's geopolitical dependence on India
are important. First, Bangladesh constitutes the lower riparian region
of as many as 54 rivers, many of which originate in the eastern
Himalayan basin and flow through India. Because of its position as
the upper riparian state, India holds the key to managing, sharing,
controlling, and augmenting the water resources of all these rivers.
Second, the Chittagong Hill Tracts in the southeastern part of
Bangladesh, where the

 Page 317
failure of successive governments to accommodate the aspirations of
ethnic minorities has led to insurgency, also border India. Geography
gives India an advantage in abetting the insurgency movement, and
hence its resolution is dependent on the goodwill of India.
Bangladesh's proximity to the politically unstable and turmoil-ridden
northeast Indian states of Assam, Manipur, Nagaland, and Tripura is
another source of concern. Continuing insurgencies in those states
have long been a matter of concern for the central government of
India, but in recent years Bangladesh has been accused of abetting
Pakistan's alleged intelligence activities to step up militancy in the
subregion. Whatever the accuracy of these allegations, the continued
instability across the border is a major source of insecurity for
Bangladesh. And when China's role is considered, the geostrategic
importance of Bangladesh in the region becomes apparent. In the
event of a major Sino-Indian military conflict, the small Indian
corridor that separates Bangladesh from Nepal could turn out to be of
tremendous strategic importance. Because the corridor is India's only
land access to the otherwise volatile northeast region, Bangladesh
believes that its friendship is of strategic value to India.
Bangladesh's geographic location also dictates the country's
vulnerability to natural disasters and environmental degradation. The
flat alluvial land has an average elevation of only 10 meters. Most of
the mighty rivers originating in the Himalayas, principally the
Ganges, Jamuna, and Meghna, pass through Bangladesh before
emptying to the Bay of Bengal. As we shall see, the erratic water
supply from these riverstoo much in the monsoon, too little in the dry
seasonmakes Bangladesh dependent on the vagaries of nature to an
extent matched in few other countries of the world. Moreover, the
concave shape of Bangladesh's coastline renders the country
extremely vulnerable to natural phenomena originating in the Bay of
Bengal. Disasters of catastrophic proportions wrought by floods,
cyclones, tornadoes, and tidal waves, which cause numerous deaths
and enormous damage in this overpopulated and impoverished
country, often more than once a year, constitute a constant threat to
Bangladesh.
Weakness of the State
Bangladesh is a weak state with fragile institutions. In terms of
sociopolitical cohesion its weakness is evident. As far as conceptions
of the state are concerned, there is a clear-cut divide between the two
main political parties with respect to "core values." At independence,
the new constitution enshrined four principlessecularism, Bengali
nationalism, democracy, and socialismthat may be considered core
values.

 Page 318
With the change in government following the assassination of Mujib,
however, secularism was replaced in the constitution by "faith in
Almighty Allah."

3This change has been a divisive factor in Bangladeshi politics. The

conflict is not over whether the state should be secular or Islamic, but
rather over whether it is advantageous to uphold the religious aspect
of national identity. At the core of the political movement that led to
the country's independence struggle was the rejection of the use of
religion in politics by the Pakistani ruling elite. Therefore, the
commitment to secularism is not only a state principle but also a
deeply ingrained value of the people of Bangladesh. The subsequent
addition of the religious dimension to Bengaliness was perceived as
necessary to distinguish the people of Bangladesh from Bengalis in
the Indian state of West Bengal, most of whom are not Muslims. The
deletion of the term "secularism" from the constitution in no way
represented a rejection of secular values in Bangladeshi politics;
similarly, the insertion of Islam was not based on any genuine
evidence that the national ethos of Bangladesh had turned to religion
as the basis of statecraft. The stated objective of the change was to
promote friendly relations with Muslim countries that were reluctant
to recognize a newly emergent country that had broken away from the
Islamic state of Pakistan. Beyond that, the change was also intended
to distance the state from the influence of India, with which its
relations had already deteriorated. Accordingly, the military-backed
post-Mujib political forces that controlled state power favored the
newly formulated national identity expressed as Bangladeshi, mainly
to gain political advantage by capitalizing on anti-India as well as pro-
Islamic sentiments. Meanwhile the followers of Mujib's Awami
League continued to insist on Bengali nationalism, stressing the
secular aspect.
That a country like Bangladesh with a nearly homogeneous society in
ethnic, linguistic, and cultural terms would experience any
controversy over national identity was hardly expected before
independence. The dispute over the question of identity, however, has
contributed to a sharp polarization of politics in Bangladesh. Indeed,
Bangladesh's failure to create a domestic political and social
consensus has led to instability in the nation's political and economic
life. The degree of dissension is such that no ideas or institutions have
managed to achieve a national status. As a result, the state has failed
to offer a clear referent of national security. Because of continuing
political fragmentation, domestic challenges to the government are
often labeled as threats to national security. Domestic security
problems are entangled with external threats, as well, which renders
the state chronically insecure. The linkage of domestic factors with
external problems is further complicated by the country's

 Page 319
dependence on external economic assistancea situation that is
compounded by the outstanding disputes with Bangladesh's
immediate neighbor.
Bangladesh emerged independent in the wake of a massive political
upsurge, but it inherited a fragile base for political institutions: more
than half of its life as part of Pakistan had been spent under military
rule. Although the new country started off with elaborate
paraphernalia for a Westminster-style democratic political system,
democracy was quickly undermined. Instead, in the name of strong
leadership and effective governance, power was concentrated in the
ruling party and its charismatic leader, Mujib. The need for strong
leadership was viewed as sufficient justification to suppress political
opposition, curb the freedom of the press, curtail the power of the
legislative and judicial branches of government, and enhance that of
the executive bodies. Threats to the stability and security of the
regime were called threats to national security. In February 1974, the
Special Powers Act (SPA) was passed to provide for preventive
detention. Ironically, the SPA was formulated in line with East
Pakistan's Public Safety Ordinance, which had been used by the
central government of Pakistan to suppress the political and economic
assertion of the people of what now constituted Bangladesh. Under
the provisions of the SPA any person could be detained if the
government believed such detention was necessary to prevent that
person from committing any act "prejudicial" to the interest of the
state.
Although the SPA was apparently designed to deal with "antisocial"
offenses, the all-embracing measure turned out to be a legal
instrument to suppress political opposition to the government. The law
has been protested by every political organization as long as it has
remained in opposition. On assuming state power, however, the same
organizations have used the law widely and quite conveniently against
their political opponents. The other striking aspect of the SPA is its
equation of national sovereignty, territorial defense, and national
security with domestic law and order, public order, and the political
and economic interest of the state. National security issues are
therefore explicitly enmeshed with issues of regime security and
political stability.
The democratic process in Bangladesh has suffered other setbacks
over the years. Concentration of power in the executive has been at
the expense of the legislature and judiciary. The parliament has been
rendered virtually ineffective and transformed into an instrument to
justify the excesses carried out by the executive. The independence of
the judiciary has been severely curtailed, and the rule of law has been
rendered practically impossible. Rigging of elections and widespread
instances of malpractice, manipulation, force, and violence have

 Page 320
destroyed the electoral process in Bangladesh. The press and the
media have been heavily censored. The constitution and the
constitutional process have been the primary casualty of these
practices. Orderly change of government has not been practiced.
Force has become the instrument for political change. Moreover, few
of the numerous political parties operating in the country have a
strong organization down to the grassroots level. They have no clear
policies or programs. Instead, personalities, patronage, and prestige
drive political behavior. Leadership of political parties is either
inherited or usurped. Hardly any of the parties practice democracy in
their own operations.
Military intervention in politics is common, and the military remains
outside civilian control. Two of the main opposition parties in the
current seventh parliamentthe Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) of
Khaleda Zia and the Jatiyo Party (JP) of General Ershadowe their
origin to the army and thrive on its support. The Awami League, the
party with the deepest political roots, has been the worst victim of
military intervention in politics. Now that it is in power, the Awami
League appears to have decided that the best way to retain power is to
keep the army in "good humor."

4In any case, the military is an important part of the state elite, and its
own perception of security, both internal and external, continues to be
a determining factor in Bangladeshi politics, adding to the weakness
of democratic institutions. As a result, the state elite is too divided and
polarized to create a national consensus.

Bangladesh is known for its chronic political instability.5Strikes and

nationwide work stoppages, traditionally used in Bangladesh as
instruments of political activism, have paralyzed the polity, putting a
severe drag on efforts to improve production, trade, and investment.
The boycott of parliament by all opposition members for nearly two
years and then their mass resignation to press their demand for a
neutral caretaker governmentcreated a debilitating stalemate in the
political life of the country.6By one estimate, during the year
preceding the June 1996 elections some 54 working days were lost
because of general strikes that shut down all economic activity. The
cost of strikes in 1993-94 was estimated to be $241 million,7which is
more than 1 percent of the country's annual gross domestic product.
Despite positive movement, signified by the formation of a new
government as a result of the nationally and internationally recognized
free and fair elections of 1996, the tradition of confrontational politics
and the lack of mutual accommodation mean that there is no
assurance of political stability. In a country that has for the greater
part of its independent history experienced direct or indirect military
intervention in politics, the continued

 Page 321
failure to achieve political stability remains a potential threat to the
democratic future, which is one of the core constitutional values.
Socioeconomic Issues
Bangladesh faces nearly every conceivable challenge that can
confront a developing country. It has one of the highest population
densities in the world. Poverty, malnutrition, and illiteracy are
pervasive. It has inherited a poor infrastructural base. It suffers from
economic, industrial, and technological deficiencies. Administrative
and managerial inexperience, coupled with political mismanagement,
have aggravated sociopolitical instability in the country, further
disrupting economic development.
Poverty on a massive scale, dependence on foreign aid, and
vulnerability to disaster

8together pose a formidable threat to the sheer survival of the people

of the country. At independence, roughly half the population lived
below the poverty line.9By 1977-78 the poverty ratio had reached
nearly 80 percent. The preindependence level was regained in 1985,
but poverty remains alarming. With about 56 percent of the urban and
51 percent of the rural population below the poverty line in 1990,
Bangladesh is in a much worse situation than most of its South Asian
neighbors.10 The infant mortality rate in Bangladesh is 108 per 1,000
live births compared to 82 in India, 91 in Pakistan, and 18 in Sri
Lanka.11 Bangladesh also ranks very low in the U.N. Development
Program ranking on the Human Development Index146th among 174
listed countries.12

Bangladesh's critical dependence on external aid has, according to

expert opinion, denied it the prospect of self-reliance (Sobhan 1991;
Rizvi 1993: 126-32). The result of that dependence is an expanding
network of the aid-sustained elite while the poor continue to grow
poorer and more numerous. The power elite of Bangladesh maintains
its exclusive position literally by trading on povertythe main
justification for continuing dependence on foreign aid from which the
elite have benefited more than the poor. The interplay of all these
factors has created pervasive frustration, lack of accommodative
attitude, growing tension, and uncertainty, all of which contribute to
national vulnerability.
The Tribal Insurgency Movement
Central to Bangladesh's domestic concerns is an unresolved problem
of national integration. More than 98 percent of the population is
Bengali. Of the 2 percent ethnic minorities, about 60 percent live in
the

 Page 322
Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) in the southeastern part of the country.
All the ethnic minorities are Buddhists of Mongoloid origin who
belong to three major ethnic groups: Arakani, Tripuri, and Kuki. The
largest tribal group, known as Chakmas, constitutes about 60 percent
of those living in the CHT. Although they speak the dominant Bengali
language, they have their own distinct dialects, and some also have
separate scripts, now rarely used.
Instead of making best use of its overwhelming ethnoreligious
homogeneity in nation-building, Bangladesh quickly developed the
typical majoritarian state syndrome. What began as a problem of
sociocultural and political-economic grievances among the minority
tribal community has turned into a major problem of national
integration that constitutes a threat to territorial integrity. The irony is
that similar experiences of cultural oppression perpetrated by Pakistan
led to the assertion of political and economic rights and eventually to
the national liberation of Bangladesh.

13 But when the turn came for Bangladesh itself to accommodate the
grievances of its own minority community, the response lacked vision
and ignored the lessons of history.

Compared to other parts of Bangladesh the CHT is rich in resources

and natural beauty, but the region's inhospitable topography insulated
it from large-scale contact with the outside until about the fifteenth
century. Settlement by Bengali people from the plains began in the
late seventeenth century. But when the movement of Bengalis
gathered momentum in the nineteenth century, the local tribal peoples
feared domination because the Bengalis were more vigorous, active,
and socially assertive (Shelley 1992: 74). The movement of nontribals
to the region was restricted by the Indian Limitation Act of 1877
(Regulation XV). During colonial times the tribal peoples were left to
themselves, except for the purpose of revenue collection, under a
regulation of 1900 that protected their exclusive social and cultural
rights. At the time of partition, some elements of the CHT desired to
become part of India rather than Pakistan on the ground that they were
not Muslims, but their petition was rejected by the Radcliffe
Commission. Ultimately the tribals capitulated to reality, but their
discontent remained. They had economic grievances as well,
including the Karnaphuli hydropower project that converted 54,000
acres of settled and cultivated land into a huge lake and affected some
100,000 people, whose traditional lifestyle was destroyed (Bose 1996:
108-9).
After independence, a tribal delegation met the head of the
government, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, in early 1972 with a list of
demands. The timing of the meeting was important: the government
was busy preparing a new constitution for the country. The demands
were

 Page 323
expressed in terms of the tribal peoples' long-standing concerns:
autonomy for the CHT and the establishment of a special legislative
body; retention of the 1900 regulation in the new constitution;
continuation of the offices of the tribal chiefs; and a constitutional
provision restricting the amendment of the regulation of 1900 and
imposing a ban on Bengali settlement in the CHT (Shelley 1992: 110).
Mujib rejected their demands on the ground that they were contrary to
national interests (Hassan 1993: 248).
The reasons behind Mujib's sharp reaction are not clear. Considering
the enormous problems facing the newly emergent country problems
that demanded national unityperhaps he considered the plight of the
small minority community to be secondary. Perhaps, in the realist
tradition, he viewed the tribals as competitors for power. Perhaps the
ruling elite was unwilling to accommodate social and ethnic diversity
and offer a democratic space to the minority community. In any case,
Mujib's demand that tribals forget their ethnic identity failed to
persuade them. The new constitution was adopted without any
specific safeguards of tribal interests. After a bill was passed in
January 1974 declaring Bangladesh a unicultural and unilingual
nation-state, the tribals found it futile to pursue their demands through
constitutional means. The Shanti Bahini (''peace force"), the armed
wing of the tribal political organization, launched insurgency
operations and took refuge across the border in India where they
received support and, Bangladesh claimed, training and arms.
The armed phase of the dispute is believed to have started in early
1975 when the Mujib government was still in power. Following his
assassination, the Shanti Bahini attacks began to intensify. The
government's counterinsurgency measures were stepped up in the
hands of Mujib's successors, Zia and Ershad, both of whom
emphasized military solutions and repression. Nonetheless, the tribals
not only continued their armed struggle but expanded their demands
to include self-determination with a separate legislature, restoration of
the fundamental rights of the tribal people, constitutional
arrangements to ensure preservation of tribal identity, and a total ban
on further settlements plus transfer of current landownership to the
tribal people. The gradual demographic transformation of the
areapresently the main concern of the tribalsis viewed as a deliberate
strategy on the part of the central government to dilute their strength.
According to one estimate the proportion of tribal peoples in the area
fell from 90.9 percent in 1951 to 88.4 percent in 1974 and 67.1
percent in 1980 (Larma 1980). The government's main response is
that people's movement within the various regions of the country
cannot be restricted. Despite recent

 Page 324
positive developmentssuch as the cease-fire following government
initiatives to repatriate the tribal refugees from Indiathe problem
persists as a low-intensity conflict that impedes national integration.
And with the involvement of India in the problem, its security
implications become even more complex.
Flight and Plight of Refugees
Another security concern is that Bangladesh is at both the sending and
receiving end of refugee migrations. Political, economic, and, in
recent times, environmental forces account for emigration out of the
densely populated country. The influx into Bangladesh can be traced
to political factors. Indeed, Bangladesh emerged independent to a
great extent as a result of the flight and plight of refugees to India
from what was then East Pakistan. The ten million refugees who fled
into India to escape Pakistani atrocities not only imposed a heavy
burden on India but so destabilized that country, socially and
demographically, that India was able to portray itself as faced with a
genuine security threat justifying a rightful role in support of
Bangladesh's liberation struggle. The refugee dimension of the
Bangladesh crisis of 1971 was indeed a catalyst in the Indo-Pakistan
war that resulted in the independence of Bangladesh. The
overwhelming majority of the refugees returned. But a large number
of them (according to some estimates, one million) did not return,
leading to problems in Indo-Bangladeshi relations that persist to this
day (Ahmed 1996: 129).
The flow of Bangladeshis to India has continued, this time impelled
by economic and environmental factors. Out-migration from
postindependence Bangladeshand the outflow is not limited to Indiais
associated with the country's economic underdevelopment on the one
hand and with natural disasters on the other. Given its geographic
proximity and a porous border that renders such movements of
population almost uncontrollable, India receives the largest number of
population almost uncontrollable, India receives the largest number of
Bangladeshis. The migrants are a major source of dispute between the
two countries and a security concern for both. A similar problem
exists between Pakistan and Bangladesh over the status of people of
Bangladeshi origin who have stayed in Pakistan. Most of these people
stayed in Pakistan after independence; others may have migrated
illegally for economic reasons. Bangladesh denies that its nationals
are moving illegally into Pakistan, claiming that Bengali-speaking
people have been settled in Pakistan for decades. As in the case of the
refugees in India, the possibility of these people being forcibly sent to
Bangladesh in large numbers threatens the sociopolitical stability of
the country.

14

Another refugee problem confronting Bangladesh involves the

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community of Urdu-speakers stranded in Bangladesh who retained
their allegiance to Pakistan after independence and opted to be
repatriated. Commonly known as Biharis, these people sought refuge
in post-1947 East Pakistan to escape persecution by extremist Hindus
and Sikhs in their Indian homeland. Many of them subsequently
moved to West Pakistan. After the independence of Bangladesh,
260,000 of them living in refugee camps in various parts of the
country including Dhaka, Chittagong, Rangpur, and Syedpur wanted
to be repatriated to Pakistan, which they now consider their homeland.
After prolonged negotiations, Pakistan ultimately agreed to repatriate.
Only a few thousand have so far been repatriated, however, and the
problem remains a thorny issue between Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Otherwise, relations between the two transformed significantly within
a few years after the independence of Bangladesh and have remained
friendly during most of the post-1971 period, mainly thanks to their
shared perception of India as a threat. It is not clear, however, whether
friendly relations have helped them to contain the Indian threat.
Moreover the collusion has not become deeply rooted, and the failure
to settle the issue of repatriation underscores the ongoing differences
between the two. Because the Biharis have always rejected allegiance
to Bangladesh and because their repatriation to Pakistan is far from
complete, their status will continue to be a source of social and
political instability for Bangladesh.
Yet another problem is the influx of Rohingya refugees into
Bangladesh from Myanmar. This in-migrationwhich has occurred
twice since independence, first in 1978 and again in 1991has become
a major national security concern for Bangladesh. The Rohingyas are
an ethnic minority Muslim community living in the Arakan
(Rakhaine) region of Myanmar close to the Bangladeshi border. Faced
with political suppression by the Myanmar military regime, Rohingya
people on both occasions crossed in large numbers170,000 in 1978
and 250,000 in 1991into Bangladeshi territory. During the second
influx, some 6,000 refugees crossed the Naaf River daily to escape the
reign of terror in Myanmar; they were sheltered in makeshift camps in
the southeastern Cox's Bazar and Bandarban districts of Bangladesh.
The exodus of refugees was associated with Myanmar's massive
military mobilization in the border areas, and thus presented a direct
security threat. In one incident on December 21, 1991, an outpost of
the Bangladesh Rifles paramilitary force in the Bandarban district was
attacked. From Bangladesh's point of view, the influx is a source of
national insecurity in addition to an excessive economic and
administrative burden. The problem is complicated by the insurgency
factor: militant Rohingyas have reportedly taken up arms to fight for
an independent homeland in

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the Arakan. The crux of the problem lies in the fact that whereas most
of the 1978 refugees returned to Myanmar, their more recent
counterparts are increasingly reluctant to return for fear of
persecution. Without a democratic transformation in Myanmar,
Bangladesh is likely to continue to face this refugee problem.
External Factors
Because of the geopolitical factors discussed earlier, the external
security concerns of Bangladesh are dominated by India. A typical
Bangladeshi outlook regards India as the main threat to national
security because of Bangladesh's geopolitically "India-locked"
situation. India-bashing is common. According to the mind-set of the
Bangladeshi political elite as well as the public in general, India is
deliberately putting pressure on its smaller and weaker neighbor
(Hossain 1991: 47). Two critical issues in Indo-Bangladeshi relations
that have security implications are the Ganges water dispute and
India's support for the ethnic insurgency movement in the CHT. The
previous section discussed the problem of ethnic insurgency, which is
essentially a domestic problem of Bangladesh but which poses an
external security threat because of India's involvement. This section
addresses the Ganges water dispute. Though essentially a problem
created in India, it has implications for the security and survival of
Bangladesh.
The Ganges, originating on the southern slope of the Himalayas,
spreads over China, Nepal, India, and Bangladesh. Its flows are highly
seasonal, with heavy and often devastating floods during the monsoon
and acute scarcity during the dry season. Because about 80 percent of
the annual rainfall on the Ganges plain occurs during the monsoon
(June to September), the flow of water is highest at that time of the
year, reaching about 2.5 million cubic feet per second at Farakka;
during the dry season the flow is reduced to 55,000 to 65,000 cubic
feet per second. The erratic flow of the Ganges makes it difficult for
the basin states to devise an equitable water-sharing arrangement. Yet
Bangladesh's dependence on river water is enormous: 86 percent of
the total land area depends on three major river systemsthe Ganges,
Brahmaputra, and Meghna. The Ganges basin accounts for nearly 32
percent of the land. Aside from the country's historical and cultural
attachment to the river, Bangladesh is crucially dependent on the
Ganges as the source of its agroecological system, production
structure, fisheries, forestry, industry, navigation, and environmental
balance. The livelihoods of more than 40 million people depend
directly on the river.
The Ganges water dispute centers on the barrage and feeder canal

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constructed by India at Farakka, 18 kilometers upstream from
Bangladesh, designed to divert part of the river's dry-season flow
through the Bhagirathi-Hoogli River to flush the silt from the port of
Calcutta. It is designed for the "preservation and maintenance of
Calcutta port by improving the regime and navigability of the
Bhagirathi-Hoogli river system."

15In October 1951, when information on the planned barrage first

appeared in newspaper reports, concern began to grow in Bangladesh
(then known as East Pakistan) regarding the potential adverse affect of
the barrage on the river's downstream flow and therefore the economy
and ecology of the lower riparian state, Bangladesh. India, however,
went ahead with construction. The project was commissioned after the
independence of Bangladesh, belying expectations that the issue could
be resolved in the context of the cordial relations that existed between
the two states at that stage.

The impact of the Ganges water issue on the society, polity, and
economy of Bangladesh is enormous and multidimensional.16 As a
result of systematic diversion of water upstream, the dry-season flow
of Ganges water in Bangladesh has fallen alarminglyto a record low
level of about 10,000 cubic feet per second compared to a historical
average of nearly 65,000 cubic feet per second at this time of
yearcausing havoc to the ecosystem of Bangladesh. The hydrologic
system has been extensively damaged, and the country's agriculture,
fishery, forestry, navigation, industry, and every other productive
sector has been exposed to disastrous consequences. The navigability
of more than 320 kilometers of large and medium waterways in the
region has become a thing of the past. Excessive upstream withdrawal
at Farakka has drastically weakened the upland flow within
Bangladesh as well, resulting in unprecedented intrusion of salinity in
the coastal areas.
The social impact, too, has been pervasive. Its worst manifestation has
been widespread unemployment in the immediately affected sectors,
particularly agriculture, navigation, and fisheries. Crop losses and
shrinking employment opportunities in the directly affected regions
are causing massive economic migration to other parts of the country,
particularly to the capital city, adding to the sociopolitical instability.
Moreover, recent years have witnessed a greater intensity and
frequency of floods in Bangladesh, commonly attributed to the release
of excess water upstream at Farakka during the monsoon season.
According to one report, Bangladesh claims that its growing food
deficit, which reached 4 million tons in 1995-96, is the direct outcome
of crop losses associated with devastating floods that hit the sixteen
northern districts of the country three times during the monsoon of the
previous year.17The failure to resolve the water dispute remains a
major impediment to

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realization of the full potential of trade and economic relations
between the two countries.
The political implications of the water-sharing issue have been
significant. Indeed, it has galvanized anti-Indian sentiment in
Bangladesh. In Bangladeshi eyes, the country can no longer be sure of
India's intentions and motives (Hassan and Khan 1989: 89). The irony
for the people of Bangladesh is that a similar dispute between India
and Pakistan was settled by the Indus Water Treaty of 1960, a pact
that withstood the strains of full-scale armed conflict between the two,
but the Ganges dispute has persisted even though Bangladesh gained
independence through a liberation struggle in which India played a
significant role.

18Bangladesh's frustration is linked to the fact that, as the lower

riparian state and a weak power, Bangladesh is unable to affect the
situation substantially. The Ganges issue is a popular theme in public
debate in the country and a recurrent topic in the domestic politics of
Bangladesh. All political parties condemn India's intransigence. The
opposition political parties, besides condemning India, criticize the
government of Bangladesh for pursuing a weak foreign policy and
failing to force India to give Bangladesh its due share.19The dispute,
moreover, is an issue in the electoral politics of Bangladesh.20India's
disregard for Bangladesh's concern, as noted earlier, has exacerbated
anti-Indianism in Bangladesh.

Apart from the issue of sharing the flow at Farakka, from the long-
term perspective the crux of the problem is the failure of Bangladesh
and India to agree on a strategy for augmentation of water. The
augmentation problem dates back to August 1974 when the two
parties examined each other's proposals to augment the dry-season
flows of the Ganges. Bangladesh proposed that several storage dams
be built on the Nepalese tributaries of the Ganges in the foothills of
the Himalayas to store the surplus monsoon flow, which could then be
released in the lean season. India, however, proposed that the flow
could be augmented by diverting water from the Brahmaputra by
connecting it with the Ganges with the help of a 320-kilometer-long
link canal, 120 kilometers of which would run through Bangladesh.
Each party rejected the other's proposal, and two decades have passed
without progress.
Bangladesh's proposal is based on its concern for the control of water
in both the dry and the monsoon seasons. The scheme would not only
augment the flow, it is argued, but also control downstream flooding
in the monsoon. In addition, the projects would generate vast amounts
of hydroelectricity for the use of the whole region. India rejected the
idea on the ground that the problem is a bilateral issue in which a third
party (Nepal) has no role.21India's proposal is based on the idea that
the three river basinsGanges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna

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constitute one single system. Because the flow of the Ganges is
inadequate and the Brahmaputra has untapped surplus flow during the
dry season, the resources of the two could be combined. Bangladesh,
however, argues that the dry-season flow of the Brahmaputra is not
adequate to meet the full requirements of the basin.
Bangladesh is also concerned that the link canal would displace
millions of people from their land, homes, and livelihoods. For a
country already overpopulated and short of cultivable land, the loss of
another half million hectares of fertile land would be a nightmare.
Besides, the canal would add to the country's communications
problems by creating another large river bisecting its northwestern
region (Hassan 1991: 52). In addition, the security implications of a
link canal with both ends in Indian territory make Bangladesh
apprehensive, particularly with respect to the possibility of troop
movement through such a canal, which would be 0.8 kilometers in
width and a minimum of 9 meters in depth, involving earthworks
equivalent to seven Suez Canals, and would require several decades to
complete.
Sharing and augmenting the Ganges water is only one of the water
problems that Bangladesh confronts with India.

22The two countries share 54 rivers. India has already started to

unilaterally construct barrages and other works on the major rivers to
divert or impede their natural flow (Hassan 1991: 35). Bangladesh
fears, therefore, that there may be many more Farakkas soon.23India's
position of bilateralism in dealing with such issues as water sharing
and augmentationwhich are fundamentally regional problemsis a
source of major concern for Bangladesh. India's resistance to a
regional approach makes unlikely any longterm resolution of the
problem and adds to the perception of vulnerability in Bangladesh.
Approaches to Security
It was Mujib's aspiration to build Bangladesh as the "Switzerland of
Asia" (Maniruzzaman 1982: 26). As the founder of a weak nation
attempting to isolate itself from superpower influences and overcome
the disadvantages arising from the dictates of geography, the
expression appealed to him. But Mujib quickly realized that Swiss-
type neutrality was more easily desired than achieved. Within a few
months of independence he signed a 25-year Treaty of Friendship,
Cooperation, and Peace with India.24The thinking behind the treaty,
however, remains far from clear (Hassan 1987: 119). Some have
suggested that it was the price for the withdrawal of the Indian army
from Bangladesh. With a number of countries, especially China and
the oil-rich Muslim states, still

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withholding recognition of Bangladesh, a quick withdrawal of the
foreign troops was considered essential. Others have suggested that
Mujib and Indira Gandhi may have considered the treaty to be in their
respective national interests. For Mujib the treaty could be taken as
evidence of Bangladesh's sovereign and independent status while at
the same time providing insurance from the friendly neighbor against
external threats as well as domestic political upheaval (Hossain 1984:
35). Mrs. Gandhi, for her part, may have needed the treaty to show her
people what India had achieved in return for all it had done for
Bangladesh. This notion lends credence to the other
interpretationnamely, that Mujib may have viewed the treaty as an
obliging gesture to India and its prime minister. Mujib may also have
hoped that the treaty would obviate the necessity of maintaining a
sizable defense force. With India as the "guarantor," Bangladesh
could limit its defense spending and devote more resources to much-
needed socioeconomic development.
From Alliance to Diversification
Whatever the rationale for the treaty, Bangladesh soon realized the
political and economic consequences of dependence on India and, by
extension, the Indo-Soviet axis. Domestically the treaty was portrayed
by its opponents as a surrender of independence. Article 8 of the
treaty, which required each country to abstain from entering or
participating in any military alliance directed against the other, and
Article 9, which required mutual consultations in order to take
appropriate steps to eliminate threats to either country, were viewed as
restricting Bangladesh's security options. The treaty was therefore
viewed, on the one hand, as preventing Bangladesh from seeking a
security arrangement in the event of a possible Indian threat and, on
the other hand, as permitting India to use Bangladeshi territory in case
of a Sino-Indian war. The growing frustration with India also
contributed to widespread suspicion in Bangladesh. Internationally,
the treaty was viewed not as an instrument institutionalizing
the treaty was viewed not as an instrument institutionalizing
friendship between two neighbors, but as an instrument to keep
Bangladesh free from the influence of outside powers, particularly
China (Maniruzzaman 1982: 48). As a result, recognition of
Bangladesh by China and by Muslim countries (which backed
Pakistan) was further delayed.

25

It was not lost on Bangladesh that India and the Soviet Union had
only limited economic and financial resources. Mujib quickly realized
that the inflow of credit and other forms of assistance were a sine qua
non for "economic emancipation" and self-sufficiency. In addition, the
constraints imposed by the devastated economic infrastructure that the
country had inherited prompted Bangladesh to move quickly to
develop

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cordial relations with the West. The result was a gradual policy shift.
The government moved to build a consortium of aid donors.
Bangladesh joined the Organization of the Islamic Conference, and
Mujib participated in its Lahore summit in 1974. Stronger efforts were
made to gain Chinese and Western recognition. The initiatives
undertaken under Mujib opened up new opportunities, but he did not
survive to see Western aid flow to Bangladesh and the country's
integration with the international community.
Under the Zia regime, Bangladesh moved further away from the Indo-
Soviet axis. Although no formal security arrangements were
developed, it moved closer to the West and the Islamic world and
developed stronger ties with China. Particularly notable was the tilt
toward the Islamic world, which was viewed as a substitute for the
development of close relations with Indiaa psychological prop, that is,
in an environment of deteriorating relations with India. Whether or
not this policy enhanced Bangladesh's security is not clear. But the
shift occurred within a decade of independence and had obvious
implications for Bangladesh's foreign policy and national security.
The new orientation was more diversified than before, and the
country's security concerns would henceforth be approached at four
main levels: national, bilateral, regional, and international.
Bangladesh's security issues are addressed from a classic realist
perspective. The emphasis is on national strength and self-relianceand
hence on the building of a strong and vibrant national economy and
polity. This approach is complemented by a well-integrated military
establishment capable of defending national independence and
territorial integrity until international support can be mobilized.
Limits of the Bilateral Approach
Bilateral negotiation has been Bangladesh's main instrument for
improving its relations with India. Not much has been achieved,
however, on most of the outstanding issues except for the transfer of
the Tin Bigha corridor to Bangladesh in 1992 in exchange for
Berubari, which was transferred to India in 1974. Bangladesh's
relationship with India began cordially. Indian assistance to the
millions of Bengali refugees who flooded into India in 1971 to escape
the reign of terror unleashed by Pakistan's military junta laid the
foundation for friendly relations between the two. India provided the
lifeblood for the provisional government of Bangladesh, too, and
contributed organizational, logistic, and diplomatic support to the
liberation struggle. But Bangladesh's independence also served the
long-term strategic objectives of India: while the enormous burden of
refugees created favorable interna-

 Page 332
tional opinion toward India, the Pakistani blunder of open attack gave
India an opportunity to retaliate in full strength, cutting an unfriendly
neighbor down to size and emerging as the unchallenged regional
power in South Asia. Although India's military intervention expedited
Bangladesh's independence, certain actions of the Indian army prior to
its withdrawalactions mounting to "wholesale plunder of Bangladesh's
material resources"sowed the seeds of distrust in Bangladesh.

26Nevertheless, relations between Bangladesh and India developed

smoothly in the immediate postliberation period. Indeed, the euphoric
heights were signaled by pronouncements that the friendship between
Bangladesh and India was "everlasting" and that ''no power on earth
will be able to make any crack in this friendship."27

The reality, however, turned out to be different. Cracks soon surfaced.

The Ganges water issue was a key factor. Mujib raised the issue
during his talk with Mrs. Gandhi in May 1974. The communiqué
signed at the end of the meeting stated that the Ganges water problem
should be resolved "with understanding so that the interests of both
countries are recognized and the difficulties removed in a spirit of
friendship and cooperation" (Ghosh 1989: 86-87)a clear indication by
both sides at the highest political level that difficulties did exist and
that they would have to be removed. An interim agreement was
worked out to withdraw the water at Farakka,28and India
commissioned the barrage pending a mutually acceptable solution.
Bangladesh, however, felt deceived by this interim agreement and was
further agitated when India continued to run the feeder canal after
May 31 (Verghese 1990: 261). This "short-term agreement" has been
viewed as one of the reasons for the assassination of Mujib (Swain
1993: 8). Although his assassination by a group of disgruntled army
officers cannot be directly linked with his failure to resolve the
Farakka issue, the growing tide of anti-Indianism in Bangladesh,
symbolized by disapproval of the commissioning of the Farakka
barrage, turned out to be one of the easily projected justifications for
the killing.29In any event, the Ganges water issue contributed to
growing anti-Indianism in Bangladesh.
India's unresponsiveness and continued withdrawal of water during
the dry season caused serious damage to Bangladesh. In its first
attempt to draw global attention to the problem, Bangladesh took the
issue to the Colombo summit of the Nonaligned Movement, later to
the Islamic Foreign Ministers' Conference in Istanbul, and finally to
the United Nations. As a result of several rounds of bilateral
negotiations, in September 1977 India and Bangladesh reached an
agreement for sharing the dry-season flow at Farakka for a five-year
period (1978-82).30Bangladesh paid a considerable price for the
agreement: it had to agree to

 Page 333
almost a doubling of India's withdrawal authority.

31 Except for a memorandum of understanding signed in 1985 and

renewed for 198688 that further curtailed Bangladesh's entitlement, no
subsequent agreement existed between the two countries until
December 1996 when they signed an accord on sharing of the water of
Ganges under a formula that appeared satisfactory to both sides. A
changed atmosphere of understanding between newly elected
governments in Dhaka and New Delhi provided the impetus, and the
water treaty was considered a signal of a promising new beginning,
though far from a resolution of the complex problem.32 It was also
seen as having opened possibilities of resolving other issues of
dispute, including the CHT problem discussed earlier. Much would,
however, depend on the actual implementation of the treaty, two key
provisions of which remain of great concern in Bangladesh:
commitment to work out agreements with regard to the othermore
than fiftycommon rivers, and to devise mutually agreeable ways of
augmenting the flows of the Ganges during the dry season. These are
difficult objectives to achieve, and more important ones from a long-
term point of view. The agreement makes no provision for arbitration
in case of the failure of either side to honor its obligations, nor does it
address the long-standing question of involving the other riparian
state, Nepal, in working out a long-term solution of the problem.

Drawing international attention to its predicament became a major

plank of Bangladesh policy on the Ganges water issue. Apart from the
United Nations, Bangladesh has tried other multilateral forums such
as the Commonwealth.33 Given India's resistance to introducing any
third party to the resolution of what it considers a bilateral dispute, the
main objective of Bangladesh's approach has been to create
international public awareness of the challenges it faces as a result of
unilateral withdrawal of water from an international river by an upper
riparian state with absolute disregard for the adverse effects upon the
lower riparian state.
Regional and International Cooperation
Bangladesh's initiative to foster regional cooperation in South Asia,
which resulted in the establishment of the South Asian Association for
Regional Cooperation (SAARC), was aimed primarily at creating
conditions conducive to peace and stability in the region. Cooperation
on noncontroversial socioeconomic issues was expected to reduce
regional tensions. Formally SAARC precludes the discussion of
"bilateral and contentious" issues. But one of the main considerations
of President Ziaur Rahman, who launched the initiative, was to
enhance the security

 Page 334
of Bangladesh by bringing the kind of collective pressure to bear on
India that could not be exerted bilaterally. India was not enthusiastic
about the idea of SAARC, of course, mainly because it feared that
smaller countries would "gang up" against it. Apart from the Gordian
knot of Indo-Pakistani rivalry, this is the main reason that SAARC
could be established only with a clear constitutional prohibition on
raising contentious issues in its deliberations. To that extent,
Bangladesh's attempt to use regionalism as a way of responding to
security concerns was not successful. Nevertheless, SAARC has made
limited progress in several areas including trade, development
financing, and the relief of poverty. Bangladesh has in fact used the
forum, successfully or not, in negotiating with its fellow members on
such contentious bilateral issues as (with India) the Ganges water and
CHT problems and (with Pakistan) repatriation of Biharis and
settlement of the issue of assets and liabilities. The forum has also
been used by other member countries, in some instances successfully,
to diffuse tension in the region.

34 And many believe that SAARC can contribute, even if indirectly,

to regional peace and understanding by removing mutual suspicion
and fear, thereby enhancing the security of member states.

Internationally Bangladesh seeks close relations with great powers

and plays an active role in the United Nations and other forums,
including the AL-Quds Committee, the Group of 77, and the
Nonaligned Movement. More recently Bangladesh was among the
first countries to join the U.S.-led international military force during
the Gulf War. Although it had very close relations with Iraq prior to
the war, Bangladesh readily joined the force and sent its troops.
Subsequently, it stepped up its contributions to international
peacekeeping and became one of the few countries to have its forces
or observers in nearly every U.N. peacekeeping mission. Indeed,
Bangladesh is the fourth-largest contributor of troops and observers to
the U.N. peacekeeping operations. This activism in the international
arena is also thought to generate support, even if only moral and
political, that strengthens the security of Bangladesh within the global
system. Bangladesh's activism is designed to compensate for its weak
status and to enhance its security through adherence to international
norms. The country has also used its international relationsboth
bilateral and multilateralin addressing many of the crucial issues
affecting national security, including the Ganges dispute and the
problems of Rohingya and Bihari refugees. Even on issues of a strictly
domestic nature Bangladesh has sought external mediation. For
example, in 1994 a representative of the Commonwealth secretary
general joined the diplomatic community in Dhaka to explore a
workable formula for holding elections under a caretaker government.

 Page 335
Economic factors, particularly trade and aid relations, have prompted
Bangladesh to develop close ties with major economic powers such as
the United States, Japan, Canada, Australia, and European Union
countries. Apart from economic considerations, however, through
these relations Bangladesh seeks to attract powerful patrons who can
provide at least moral and political support against potential
adversaries. China, for example, is not only a source of moral and
political support but also a major supplier of arms for Bangladesh and
hence an important balancing factor for Indo-phobic Bangladesh. One
of the main objectives of Bangladesh's efforts to establish close links
with Pakistan, the Islamic states, the United States, and China was to
escape from alleged Indian hegemony (Rizvi 1993: 150).
Joining the Global Trend
By a historic coincidence, the renewed wave of democracy that
followed the triumph over communism found resonance in
Bangladesh. To be sure, the political transition in Bangladesh in 1990-
91 was more an outcome of internal political dynamics than a
response to external events. The coincidence was nevertheless
notableas were the recurrent, often traumatic, setbacks. Like many
other developing states, Bangladesh is struggling to establish
democracy and strengthen its institutions.
In the economic domain, liberalization and the free market system are
taking root. Major policy changes have been introduced that, despite
the political instability, are resulting in higher rates of growth, greater
macroeconomic stability, and a surge in direct foreign investment.
Caught up in the worldwide economic trends, Bangladesh has
embarked in a big way on the process of privatization and promotion
of free enterprise. Basic reforms have been introduced to make
currency convertible, to ease restrictions on foreign investment, and to
eliminate import controls. Efforts have been made to deepen and
broaden earlier reforms aimed at achieving self-reliance through
greater internal resource mobilization, reduction of public
expenditures and subsidies, and promotion of the public sector's
efficiency. "Economic diplomacy," though not a precisely defined
expression, has become a key word in the corridors of government.
The idea is to promote trade and foreign investment and thereby
strengthen the country's interface with the international economy.

 Page 336

Lessons
Bangladesh's conception of security is essentially that of a weak state.
Not only are the ideas and institutions of the state weak and fragile,
but there is little internal sociopolitical cohesion. Indeed, the failure to
create a domestic political and social consensus has led to continuing
instability in the political and economic life of the nation. The degree
of dissension is such that the constitutional core values have failed to
achieve national status. Hence there is considerable ambiguity
regarding what is to be secured. Given the political fragmentation and
the weakness of the state, internal threats to the survival of the
government are often proclaimed to be issues of national security.
Although it is ethnically, religiously, and linguistically homogeneous,
the country suffers from the usual difficulties associated with nation-
building and national integration.
Domestic security problems are aggravated by the country's
geopolitical situation, economic underdevelopment, and external
dependence. Bangladesh does not have the political, economic, and
military capabilities to influence its external environment, nor is it
capable of facing many of its domestic challenges without external
support. The internal and external threats to Bangladesh's security
interact with each other and are closely linked to the geopolitical
realities of the country. The internal threats are related to basic issues
of nation-building. The failure of successive ruling elites to
accommodate social and ethnic diversity by ensuring a democratic
space for the small minority community accounts for the centrifugal
tendencies. Forces impeding the fulfillment of national
aspirationsboth economic and politicalalso contribute to Bangladesh's
perception of insecurity.
External threats are both structural and behavioral, real and perceived,
and are to a great extent Indocentric. The approach adopted by
Bangladesh to ensure its security can be characterized as based in the
realist tradition but with an active use of neoliberal instruments. It
began with a vision of neutrality and progressed to an alliance with
India. Disillusionment with that arrangement then prompted
Bangladesh to search for diversification and balance. As the weaker
partner in their mutual relations, Bangladesh approaches its perceived
security threats from India with a queer combination of deference and
distraction. For geopolitical, historical, ecological, and economic
reasons Bangladesh depends on India for its survival and
development. But in response to what is viewed as Indian indifference
to its smaller neighbor's vulnerable positionas well as in fear of
dominationBangladesh seeks to improve its relations with other
countries. Those efforts have been complemented by activism in
regional and multilateral institutions. Bangla-

 Page 337
desh's initiative to set up the South Asian Association for Regional
Cooperation, despite the forum's well-known limitations, is clear
evidence of the country's reliance on regionalism to offset its
weakness and vulnerability. Domestically the country's efforts to build
a self-reliant and strong society, polity, and economy also depend on
external support. Collaboration with regional and international
institutions complements bilateral negotiations on contentious issues.
With respect to the problem of national integration, the adopted
strategy is a typical combination of majoritarian fear and force: fear of
challenges to its monopoly of power and force as the instrument of
response. From a state-centric perspective, therefore, the Chittagong
Hill Tracts problem continues to be approached more as a separatist
threat than a problem of nation-building. In that case, the
government's policy combines political accommodation and various
means of suppression.

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10
Pakistan
The Crisis Within
Samina Ahmed
As Pakistan approaches the twenty-first century, it faces a changed
security environment, both domestically and internationally. Internally
Pakistan is in the midst of a transition from military to democratic
rule. The transition is occurring at a time when long-standing,
unresolved disputes (social, economic, and political) among internal
forces have become more acute and now pose severe challenges to the
state. Internal challenges include ethnic and sectarian violence and an
overall atmosphere of acute political polarization. The state also
appears less and less capable of protecting its citizens against threats
posed by political and criminal elements, especially in the urban
centers.

1 In fact, the policies and priorities of the state are aggravating the
crisis of insecurity in Pakistan. The overemphasis on defense has
skewed government priorities at a very high socioeconomic cost.

The internal socioeconomic insecurities have been further

exacerbated, at least in the short term, by the demands of international
institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the
World Bank. Aid-dependent Pakistan's overreliance on these
international economic institutions2 is forcing it to follow their
prescriptions for economic transformationincluding an increase in
taxaton, a reduction of state subsidies, and increased unemployment
as a result of privatizationthat exacerbate feelings of alienation among
the poorest sections of society in a deteriorating economic climate.3
As the state adopts free market policies, the increasing gap between
rich and poor is intensifying the socioeconomic tensions in civil
society.

 Page 339
In terms of external threats, India continues to be the defining concern
of Pakistan. A long history of distrust and hostility, which
encompasses three wars and has yielded no progress toward even a
limited rapprochement, means that Pakistani perceptions of threat still
center on India, its regional rival and most powerful neighbor.
(Cheema and Cheema 1994). Regional power imbalances have played
a major role in defining the South Asian geopolitical environment.
India's size, population, and economic and military strength,
combined with its aspirations for a commensurate regional and global
role, have led to feelings of insecurity in Pakistan (Tellis 1995: 288).
At the same time, these asymmetries and Pakistan's conception of its
own national role have led to consistent Pakistani attempts to
challenge India in its neighborhood, taking advantage of opportunities
presented by Pakistan's strategic location at the crossroads of South,
Southwest, and Central Asia with sea lanes to the oil-rich Persian Gulf
region. The end of the Cold War has reduced the strategic importance
of Pakistan, however, posing new security challenges for its central
decision makers.
Challenges in the Post-Cold War World
Although the end of the Cold War has contributed to the resolution of
several long-standing disputes, the two major actors in South Asia,
Pakistan and India, remain deeply divided. In fact, in the 1990s the
Kashmir dispute, both a symptom and a cause of conflict between the
two states, has once again gained salience, leading to a further
deterioration in Indo-Pakistani relations. Pakistani resentment and fear
of India have led to continued attempts to counter perceived threats
from India and to project Pakistan as a credible regional rival through
the adoption of security policies that focus on the acquisition of
military power, including a nuclear capability. These policies, in turn,
contribute to the ongoing arms race in South Asia, further
accentuating regional tensions and instability.
Regional Tensions and External Challenges
Pakistan has also endeavored to acquire a regional standing of its own
through policies of alignment with regional powers such as China and
extraregional powers such as the United States. But changes in the
global power balance in the post-Cold War years have placed new
constraints on Pakistan's ability to maneuver (Hussain 1988). The end
of the Cold War and demise of the Soviet Union have not only
reduced South Asia's significance in U.S. strategic perceptions, but
have also virtually nullified its need for alliance with states such as
Pakistan.

 Page 340
Although the importance of the United States has not declined for
Pakistan, which is especially keen on reviving the military
relationship, bilateral relations between the two former allies are
strained over such issues as Pakistan's acquisition of a nuclear
capability.
During the Cold War years, Pakistan's policy makers made effective
use of the opportunities presented by Sino-Soviet and Sino-Indian
tensions to establish close ties with China, as well, with the dual aim
of counterbalancing India's power and increasing Pakistan's leverage
with its main external ally, the United States. Close links with the
PRC did provide Pakistan a measure of security in its dealings with
Indiademonstrated by Chinese pressure on India during the 1965
Indo-Pakistan conflict (Syed 1974: 114-15) and by China's extension
of arms assistance, sales, and related technology to Pakistan.
Pakistan's role as an intermediary in bringing about a U.S.-PRC
détente in the 1970s also helped to strengthen its links with the United
States. During the late 1970s and 1980s, Pakistan and China
collaborated closely on political and military matters.
But in the context of the disintegration of the Soviet Union, an easing
of tensions between the PRC and Russia, and an improvement of
Sino-Indian relations, Pakistani policy makers can no longer depend
on unequivocal Chinese support vis-à-vis India. Though Sino-
Pakistani defense cooperation continues to be critical, especially with
respect to Pakistani acquisition of nuclear technology and hardware,

4 there are clear limits to the scale and level of military technology
China can transfer to Pakistan, and there is little likelihood of Chinese
physical intervention to assist Pakistan in the event of conflict (Tellis
1995: 291, 298). Moreover, new Sino-Pakistani tensions are emerging
as a result of Chinese perceptions of threat from religious separatist
elements in Xinjiang province, because the activities of Pakistani
religious parties and extremists extend beyond the state's borders
(Baum 1992: 502).

Now that the rationale for security relationships forged during the
Cold War is no longer tenableor at least is far less relevantPakistani
policy makers are faced with the need to reformulate their strategic
policies to meet their India-centered objectives of state security. At
the same time, other developments in Pakistan's immediate
neighborhood affect its security. An escalation in the ongoing Afghan
civil war, in particular, bears direct repercussions for Pakistani
security due to its geographic proximity.
Regional Developments and Internal Security
The Afghan crisis underscores the close relationship between
Pakistan's internal and external security environments. For example,
not only

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does the existence of a large Afghan refugee population mean that
Pakistani territory continues to be used as a sanctuary and a base for
rival Afghan contenders, but the Afghan civil war and the refugee
presence have had their own impact on internal Pakistani politics and
security. The issue of narcotics production, use, and trade in Pakistan
is closely linked to the absence of an effective state authority in
Afghanistanas is the flow of sophisticated arms across the Pakistani-
Afghan border, which undermines the security of Pakistan's citizens,
deprives the state of its control over the means of violence, and
promotes the criminalization of politics.

These detrimental effects on Pakistan's internal security are

particularly visible in Sindh province. While state policies have led to
an intensification of state-ethnic, interethnic, and intraethnic tensions
in Sindh, ethnic dissidents have used sophisticated arms, obtained
from the cross-border arms trade, to violently confront security forces
and each other in Sindh's provincial capital, Karachithe country's
industrial and financial heart and its sole major port, providing nearly
two-thirds of all central revenue.6 There have been frequent rocket
attacks on government offices and personnel, such as the attack on the
Sindh Secretariat in July 1995.
The Afghan refugee presence also places a substantial economic
burden on the state as the international community continues to reduce
its funding in light of the ongoing civil war. The refugee presence has
resulted in widespread environmental degradation in the North West
Frontier Province (NWFP) and Baluchistan, the two Pakistani
provinces bordering Afghanistan. Moreover, the influx of Afghan
Pakhtuns has upset the delicate demographic balance between ethnic
Baluch and Pakhtuns in the province of Baluchistan.7 The buildup of
ethnic tensions increases the potential for interethnic violence and
heightens Baluch alienation toward the center (Zulfikar 1993: 132).
Another issue of particular relevance for Pakistan's internal and
external security is the intensification of sectarian strife, especially in
urban centers where violence is already endemic. Sectarian tensions
between militant Shia and Sunni organizations create new security
considerations, as well, because they make Pakistan more vulnerable
to external intervention. Tensions with neighboring Iran could
conceivably lead to Iranian intervention, given that Iran has
maintained a close relationship with the minority Shia community in
Pakistan (Lodhi 1994a). Sunni militants, for their part, have the moral
and material support of countries such as Saudi Arabia.
The rise of Islamic extremism is in large measure a consequence of
the political manipulation of religion by incumbent governments and
by

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all political parties. Until the dismemberment of Pakistan in 1971,
religion was used by Islamist parties in a bid to broaden their narrow
support base and by state authorities as a nation-building tool to
justify, for example, the formation of Pakistan on the basis of the two-
nation theory.

8 Yet central decision makers made no systematic effort to

institutionalize religion as a legitimizing tool. When a majority of
Pakistan's Muslim Bengali population opted for secession, the two-
nation theory became increasingly redundant. Political bargaining and
the quest for identity then focused primarily on regional and ethnic
competition.9

The Pakistan People's Party (PPP) government of Prime Minister

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, therefore, relied on populist rhetoric to counter
perceived threats to centralized power posed by demands for regional
autonomy from the peripheral federating units. Following the coup
d'état of 1977, however, the new military rulers, having deposed an
elected government and executed a prime minister, faced a crisis of
legitimacy. Consistent efforts were therefore made to legitimize
military rule through the institutionalized use of religion. As part of
their legitimizing strategy, the new rulers provided state patronage to
Islamic extremist groups and parties as a counterweight against the
political opposition (Ziring 1988: 807). At the same time, the
Pakistani military and external powers such as the United States
patronized Afghan religious factions in their fight against the Afghan
government and its Soviet allies. Pakistani fundamentalist parties, too,
were encouraged to play an active role in the Afghan crisis.10 As a
result, Islamic extremists in Pakistan and their Afghan counterparts
are well organized and equipped to confront perceived threats to their
interests in a far less sympathetic domestic, regional, and global
environment.
New Imperatives
The domestic compulsions of Pakistani policy makers have therefore
had their impact on the present directions of Pakistani security
practice, as have their strategic perceptions. In the Indian case, for
example, both internal and external forces have contributed to
Pakistan's adoption of a hostile stand. Though there is indeed a deep
distrust in Pakistan of its more powerful and ambitious neighbor, the
Indian ''threat" has also been used by unrepresentative regimes as an
expedient tool to attain domestic ascendancy, to control the state's
resources, and to defuse internal opposition (Harrison 1992). But such
confrontational policies, in turn, increase regional tensions and
instability.
Internal instability, historical animosities, the unavoidable facts of
geography, and ambitious policies aimed at expanding Pakistan's
regional

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roleall intertwine to determine the directions of Pakistan's security
policy. Global, regional, and internal developments such as the spread
of Islamic fundamentalism and an unsympathetic international
economic order have equally significant impacts on the security of the
Pakistani state. Because these developments are taking place at a time
when the role of Pakistan's former allies, such as the United States and
China, is changing in South Asia, one might reasonably expect
Pakistan to be undertaking a major reappraisal of its security
imperatives. Is the Pakistani leadership reordering its priorities to deal
with new internal, regional, and global challenges? Are new Pakistani
conceptions of security evolving, placing a greater stress on political
and socioeconomic dimensions, or do strategic and defense concerns
still dominate security policy making? Have new strategies been
devised to meet such reordered goals? These are some of the
questions this chapter seeks to answer.
Directions of National Security Policy
A look at Pakistan's contemporary security thinking and behavior
provides ample evidence that continuity, rather than change,
characterizes its perceptions and policies. No serious attempt has been
made, beyond the rhetorical, to formulate and implement alternative
concepts of security that would incorporate all levels and dimensions
of threat.
Continuity in Core Values
Although Pakistan has no formal security doctrine, official definitions
of security can be ascertained through the speeches, statements, and
writings of its central decision makers. Their pronouncements reveal a
continued focus on military security. The core values of national
security are identified primarily as the protection of the state's
territorial integrity, independence, and sovereignty. Articulated
perceptions of threat, moreover, concentrate on external threats,
although internal threats have assumed a greater significance in
official appraisals of late. The consistency of this conception of
security can be traced from the declarations of the first Pakistani
prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, who stressed that "the defense of
the state is our foremost consideration," to those of the last military
ruler, President and Army Chief of Staff General Zia-ul-Haq, who
emphasized that the country's very future social, political, and
economic"depended on its capability to defend its geographic
frontiers" (Rizvi 1988: 17).
To a considerable extent, this propensity to concentrate on the
external threat continues to rest on Pakistani perceptions of threat
from India. The deep-rooted belief in an ever-present Indian threat is
evident

 Page 344
in the declarations, over the decades, of Pakistani policy makers. In
the 1960s, for example, as India armed itself following the Sino-
Indian conflict, the president of Pakistan, Field Marshal Ayub Khan,
warned that "India is planning to raise two armies, one with which to
face China and the other to use against Pakistan and other smaller
neighbors in pursuance of her expansionist ambitions" (Khan 1964:
204-5), and his foreign minister and later prime minister of Pakistan,
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, claimed that India's augmentation of its military
strength had led to fears that "these weapons will be turned
against...the people of Pakistan. This is a genuine fear. It is also a
natural fear" (Bhutto 1964: 5). More than twenty years later, a former
Pakistani ambassador to India provides a representative picture of
official perceptions of India: "For us in Pakistan...we perceive that the
Indian leadership and a sizable segment of its following continue to
regard the formation of Pakistan as an historical error forced on India,
that given the opportunity, they would like in some way to redress the
situation.'' Pakistan, he states, is "hemmed in by the very real
apprehension that at best India will not be satisfied with anything less
than a client-state status for its neighbors, of whom, for India, we are
the most recalcitrant and important. This fear about Indian hegemony
is very real" (Hyder 1987: 74-75).
State Building, Regime Legitimacy, and National Security
The realist conception of security that such statements reflect is also
the outcome of Pakistan's political history. Because the Pakistani
military has been the dominant domestic force during most of the
country's existence, its perceptions, value system, and institutional
interests have dominated the state's approach to security issues. Hence
both the military's hostility toward India and its need to justify the
disproportionately large expenditure on defense by citing the danger
of an external enemy influence Pakistan's security discourse. President
Zia-ul-Haq, for example, justified military expenditure on the ground
that "Pakistan cannot afford any cut or freeze in defense expenditure
that "Pakistan cannot afford any cut or freeze in defense expenditure
since you cannot freeze threats to Pakistan's security";

11 and his vice chief of army staff, General Mirza Aslam Beg, claimed
that the existence of neighbors as powerful as India determines
Pakistan's "security environment and therefore the need for Pakistan
to maintain a very large armed forces, larger than what we can
support. This is a fundamental truth and this is the price that we have
to pay to retain our national security and territorial integrity of the
country."12

As a consequence, security policy focuses primarily on maintaining a

balance of power with India. In the 1960s, for example, General
Ayub's foreign minister, Z. A. Bhutto, emphasized that Pakistan had
been

 Page 345
forced to arm itself: "We have made our poor people take less than
what was their share, we have deprived them of their basic minimum
requirements, in order to maintain a precarious military balance with
India ....[Peace can] only be maintained when there is a balance of
power...in the subcontinent" (Bhutto 1964: 7-8). In the 1990s, Prime
Minister Benazir Bhutto's chief of naval staff, Admiral Saeed M.
Khan, stated that any "system in which power imbalances exist is
inherently unstable....Vast disparities in the size and power potential
of states in the region seriously complicate the task of establishing a
stable security regime in this area."

13 Her foreign minister, Sardar Assef Ali, stressed that Pakistan is

"fully prepared" to deal with any potential threats posed by the
ongoing Indian arms race.14

Decision makers in multiethnic Pakistan, moreover, consistently

uphold the myth of the nation-state. They believe that the state's
security demands that every citizen's loyalty must be to the state,
overriding ethnic, linguistic, territorial, and economic interests, which
one military official calls the "cancer of provincialism."15 According
to former president Ghulam Ishaq Khan, not only does Pakistan's
geopolitical situation mean that its very survival depends on building
and maintaining a credible defense capability, but internal unity is a
prerequisite for external defense. "We must have the moral courage,"
he adds, "to rise above short-term political expediency [and] narrow
parochial considerations."16
The military-strategic conception of security in the external sphere is
applied in the internal context as well. Policy makers have
consistently created a body of legislation that has strengthened the
state's coercive capacity to counter perceived threats to the political
order.17 The imperatives of an unstable political system have led to a
change in rhetoric, however, and a new emphasis is being placed in
public announcements on the physical and material well-being of
citizens. Articulating her government's priorities after winning the
1993 election, Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto declared that, in line
with the reordered priorities of her government, "in four years, there
will be sustainable levels of inflation and unemployment"; health care
would be provided as well, and education and major development
projects would be implemented.18 Pointing to the link between
interstate conflict and internal development, Prime Minister Nawaz
Sharif has stressed that Pakistan and India "have wasted enough
time...due to heavy spending on non-development expenditures we are
stuck and are running 50 years behind" the rest of the world.19
But, in practice, domestic goals and concerns remain subordinate to
military and strategic objectives in the formulation and
implementation

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of security policies.

20 Meanwhile, official articulations tend to link the internal to the

external threat. It is claimed, for example, that political instability is
both a result of external intervention in Pakistan's internal affairs and
a weakness that can be exploited by external rivals to undermine the
Pakistani state. In 1986, facing political and ethnic dissent, the
military's nominee for prime minister, Junejo, claimed that India was
arming "antigovernment subversives" who then "manage their entry
into Pakistan for subversive activities, especially in Sindh."21 Even
Prime Minister Bhutto, perceived as a political threat after her
dismissal from office by the military in 1989, was declared a "security
risk" by military intelligence, allegedly due to her close ties with
Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.22

Although this focus on military power and the external threat reflects
the inclinations of Pakistan's security decision makers, there are many
other actors within the state whose definitions of security do not
necessarily coincide with those of the central decision makers. It is
therefore necessary, in any discussion of Pakistani conceptions of
security, to examine those other actors and assess their impact on
security policy.
The Many Faces of Pakistani Security
Because the Pakistani state, like any other state, is neither an abstract
concept nor a solitary actor, its definitions of security and its ranking
of defense priorities are the product of internal decisions. Those
decisions, in turn, are determined by the perceptions, domestic
interests, and goals of the dominant political actors. They decide on
various security options, which determine whose security is upheld
and whose is undermined (Hussain 1988: 3).
The civil and military bureaucracies remain the dominant actors, but
others who influence policy include the political leadership both
within the government and in the opposition. Nongovernmental
organizations and various social, economic, and political interest
groups have yet to acquire a voice in policy formulation. But
international actors, including such organizations as the United
Nations, the IMF, and the World Bank, do play a role, albeit limited
and indirect, in determining the direction of Pakistan's security policy.
Decision Makers and Security Policy
The military's dominant political role has enabled it to shape security
policy according to its own perceptions and gear it toward the
promotion of its own goals. Thus, the military's perceptions of hostile

 Page 347
interstate relations have led to the adoption of security policies that
emphasize the need for military security against the external (mainly
defined as the Indian) threat to the sovereignty and territorial integrity
of the state. The same threats have also been used to legitimize
Pakistan's disproportionately large defense spending and its
continuous expansion of the military establishment, helping to ward
off challenges from competing actors such as the political leadership.
Although there has been a transition from authoritarian to democratic
rule in Pakistan, no radical transformation in civil-military relations
has occurred. The military's political role and its ability to intervene at
will have not changed. The military's decision to transfer power to
civilian hands following General Zia-ul-Haq's abrupt death in a plane
crash in August 1988 was itself a tactical withdrawal, motivated by
concern that continued military rule could lead to a strong civil
challenge and would not be looked on favorably in the new
international environment. The transfer of power was, in fact,
undertaken in such a way as to ensure the military's continued
political dominance and the protection of its interests. Hence the
newly elected prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, was allowed to form a
government only after agreeing to a continuation of the army's
defense and foreign policies and pledging to respect its institutional
autonomy.

23 The prime minister later admitted that her government's autonomy

was restricted institutionally, economically, politically, and
structurally by the Army High Command (Rizvi 1991: 40).

When the civilian government was perceived as challenging the

military's authority, it was replaced by a caretaker military
government. Steps were taken to ensure that the party of the military's
chosen candidate, Nawaz Sharif, would emerge victorious in the 1990
elections (Lodhi and Hussain 1990b). But the government of Nawaz
Sharif was itself dismissed after its relations with the military
deteriorated. In the 1993 elections, the PPP once again emerged
victorious. As in the past, the present elected leadership had limited
room to maneuver because military officials made it clear that the
army would continue to provide "guidance and advice," especially in
sensitive areas such as defense and security policies, foreign affairs,
and internal security (Lodhi 1994b: 298).
In November 1996, the Bhutto government was dismissed by the
President in an "army-backed" constitutional coup. (Hussain 1996:
25). Once again, a shadow military government took steps to ensure
that the army's chosen candidate, Nawaz Sharif, heading the Muslim
League, would win the general elections scheduled for February 1997.
An aggressive media campaign was launched against the PPP. Its
leaders were arrested and the Bhutto government was accused of
economic

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mismanagement, large-scale corruption, and human rights violations,
including extrajudicial killings in Karachi. Anti-PPP figures were
installed in key positions, including that of the prime minister and the
governors and chief ministers of all four provinces.
In January 1997, a few weeks prior to the polls, President Leghari
announced the formation of the Council for Defense and National
Security (CDNS), to be chaired by the president and composed of the
prime minister, the chairman, of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee,
the three service chiefs and key ministers. Supposedly an advisory
body, the CDNS was an indicator of the military's desire to formalize
its dominant role over policy making in sensitive areas such as
defense, foreign policy, the economy, and internal security (Rashid
1997: 20; Hussain 1997: 28-29).
In the February elections, the Muslim League won a two-thirds
majority in the federal parliament. The Muslim League then formed
independent or coalition governments in the provinces of the Punjab,
the NWFP, and Sindh. On April 1, 1997, the federal parliament
adopted the Thirteenth Amendment bill, removing the president's
powers of dissolving the national and provincial legislatures, which
had been used to dismiss the past three elected governments. Yet
Prime Minister Sharif remains dependent on the military's continued
support to complete his full term of office. That support, in turn, will
depend on his willingness to follow the military's policy directives,
particularly in the realm of internal and external security.
Because the military remains the dominant domestic actor, the
traditional emphasis on the attainment of military power to ward off
external threats remains in place. Military spending continues to be
justified on the grounds of the "national interest" as defined by the
military in line with its perceptions and institutional interests.
According to a senior military official, "given the geopolitical
situation in the region... security has been and will remain the prime
situation in the region... security has been and will remain the prime
concern" of Pakistan, and the defense expenditure will not be reduced
if it means "diminishing the level of security."

24 Another official observes that although ''maintaining a large

standing army is very costly, we at the same time cannot be oblivious
to the threats to our integrity and solidarity."25

The continuation of the political status quo is most clearly reflected in

the direction of the state's economic policies. Following the coup
d'état of 1977, an effort was made to redefine economic priorities in
line with changed circumstances. As allocations for the military and
civil bureaucracies continued to increase, straining the economic
resources of the state, policies of deregulation and privatization were
adopted,

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concentrating on a disinvestment of state assets in order to fund such
nondevelopmental expenditure. These policies, which were
institutionalized by the 1990s, include the sale of key assets and
utilities to both domestic and foreign investors.
By the 1980s the gradual reduction of funding from external sources,
which had been used for both developmental and nondevelopmental
purposes, had led to a greater reliance on foreign loans. As a result,
debt service has become a major portion of the annual budget.

26 At the same time, direct and indirect taxation has been used to meet
the budget deficit. In the 1996-97 budget, for example, out of a total
outlay of 500 billion rupees (Rs.), 131.4 billion was allocated for
defense, an increase of 14 percent over the previous fiscal year;27 Rs.
186 billion was allocated for debt servicing, and Rs. 40 billion was to
be raised by additional taxation to help meet the budget deficit of Rs.
60.8 billion. Tax exemptions and state subsidies for food and social
services have been reduced as well, adversely affecting the poorest
sections of society as a result of soaring inflation and a higher cost of
living (Mian 1996: 39; Zia 1996: 34-35).

Disputation and Discord

In a system of democratic rule, an elected political leadership cannot
completely ignore the demands of its varied constituencies for
socioeconomic development. Yet in Pakistan, where the political
transformation has been incremental and political leadership is weak,
it has been impossible to transfer funds from defense to development
or to bring about the structural changes required to remedy long-
standing grievances and alleviate the sense of alienation, especially
among domestic elements who believe they have been excluded from
decision-making circles and deprived of their due share of the state's
resources. Nor are elected governments in a position to challenge the
domestic aspects of the military's approach to security. Even after the
assumption of power by an elected leadership, the military has
continued to use force to suppress political dissent without the
government's foreknowledge or approval. In its military operations in
urban Sindh in July 1992, for example, the military high command
took unilateral action against a major partner of the governing party in
the center. The military justified its actions on the ground that "we
sincerely want to help the administration to restore law and order in
the province, but the civilian government is not cooperating with
us."28
The military's position as the dominant decision-making unit, and its
continued use of coercion in domestic affairs, have their own
implications for Pakistani security. Indeed, the legitimacy of the
state's

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norms and actions is being questioned by a growing number of
domestic entities. Prominent among these are various ethnic groups
and parties who do not identify with the nation-state as constructed by
the central government. In multiethnic Pakistan the concept of the
nation-state is becoming increasingly irrelevant, partly because of
deeply rooted and distinct historical, territorial, linguistic, and social
identities. The assertion of ethnic, regional, tribal, and even sectarian
identities is also a product of the authoritarian nature of the state,
where overcentralized structures of control have been continually
expanded and force used to curb dissent (Rashid and Shaheed 1993).
The absence of representative institutions and the forcible suppression
of political dissent have led to perceptions of threat from the state
itself on the part of ethnic movements and minorities who have been
targets of coercion by the state apparatus. For those minorities,
security is therefore defined as protection from the coercive forces of
the state and assurance of physical safety through the acquisition of
political, economic, and social autonomy.

29 For the dominant ethnic groupthose who control the state apparatus
and hence policy making in the statesecurity means the consolidation
of the political, economic, and social status quo.

Internal instability and endemic violence have led many

nongovernmental agencies, including such human rights organizations
as the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) and the
Women's Action Forum (WAF), to emphasize the need for
reprioritizing state policies to protect citizens against such threats.30
Their impact on actual policy making, however, remains minimal. As
the state gradually loses control over its population and territory,
especially in urban centers such as Karachi, and as its authority and
autonomy are contested by parties engaged in criminal activities such
as drug trafficking and the illegal arms trade (Hanif 1989b), the
legitimacy of the political system and the policies of the state's
managers are increasingly disputed by alienated domestic political
actors. Although these trends indicate the existence of more serious
threats to security emanating from internal rather than external
sources, the government's national security policy remains largely
unaffected. The continued emphasis on external security and on the
acquisition of military power reflects the internal division of power
among the various domestic actors.
External Influences
The state of Pakistan's economy could, however, affect the priorities
of its national security policy. In an increasingly interdependent
world, Pakistan's economic vulnerability has increased the influence
of international institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank.31
That

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dependence could lead to a change in national security policy, because
those institutions are pressing for a diversion of state expenditure from
defense to developmental goals.

32 Major bilateral aid donors and investors such as Japan are also
pressuring Pakistan to abandon its nuclear program and support
nonproliferation measures for South Asia.33

Yet the state's decision-making units are still in a position to accept or

reject international and domestic pressures. Modifications in policy, or
even just in rhetoric, are made only to the extent that the institutional
interests of those units are not adversely affected. Security concepts
still depend, therefore, on the imperatives of the internal political
processes in the state.
Paths to Security
Because Pakistan's long history of conflict with India has created a
"cold war" mind-set, the security thinking of its principal decision
makers remains centered on India.34 They believe that the primary
objective of policy making must rest on ways of "guarding Pakistan
from India" (Hyder n.d.: 12) and of providing it with the ability to
protect itself from "the dangerous and hegemonistic designs of
India."35 In President Zia's words, "We will not allow India to bully
us'' (Hussain 1988: 1). The consistency of such thinking can be seen in
the discourse of military personnel over the years. In the mid-1960s,
for example, Pakistani army officers claimed that ever since Pakistan's
independence, India "has employed every conceivable tactic to
destroy Pakistan and coerce her into subjugation." Hence the size and
shape of Pakistan's defense forces are "mainly based against a threat
from India."36 In the late 1980s and 1990s, India's objectives are
thought to remain unchanged: to keep Pakistan "weak, militarily,
politically, and economically, so that it does not stand in the way of
Indian aims and objectives in South Asia."37
Arms and Security
Conditioned by their values and training, the Pakistan armed forces
also believe that the Indian threat cannot be met through dialogue and
negotiation; it can be countered only through the acquisition of
military power, mainly conventional but also nuclear. Pakistan, it is
stressed, must be "prepared in all respects to defend its territorial
integrity at all costs and with all available resources."38 What remains
unsaid, however, is that military power is also used to legitimize the
military's disproportionate claims on the nation's economic resources
and even its internal political dominance (Table 9).

 Page 352
TABLE 9
Pakistan's Military Expenditure and Size of Armed Forces, 1981-
91
Annual military Armed forces Military
expenditure (millions of (thousands of expenditure as
U.S. dollars) persons) percentage of GNP
1981 873 560 5.5
1982 1,033 588 5.8
1983 1,349 588 6.2
1984 1,401 588 5.9
1985 1,650 647 6.3
1986 1,833 645 6.5
1987 1,989 645 6.5
1988 2,185 645 6.5
1989 2,387 684 6.5
1990 2,829 790 7.1
1991 2,672 803 6.1
SOURCE: World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers
1991-1992. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Arms Control and
Disarmament Agency, 1994.

NOTE: Any figures on Pakistani military expenditure must be taken

as approximate because expenses are hidden under several budgetary
and extrabudgetary headings.
Pakistan's objective of achieving a conventional military balance has
been difficult to attain because of regional asymmetries in capability
and resources. Following India's "peaceful nuclear explosion" in mid-
1974, Pakistan too adopted a nuclear program, which officials claim is
primarily a defensive response to the Indian threat. According to
Pakistani leaders and senior officials, Pakistan "is surrounded by
nuclear powers ....Only China is a confirmed friend. ... India is a
confirmed enemy" (Chishti 1989: 5). Pakistan must therefore have a
bomb to "ensure security, to create a deterrent."
39

For Pakistani decision makers, the strategy of nuclear deterrence

appears to be a cost-effective option, with the added advantages of
prestige and the acquisition of a regional standing comparable to

 Page 353
India's.

40 The country's nuclear doctrine is based on creating strategic

ambiguity. Official statements stress, for example, that Pakistan has
the "capacity to make one [nuclear weapon] within a reasonable
period of time" but has decided against a weapons-oriented program,
intending "to keep ourselves at this stage because it provides us with
an effective deterrent."41 They also claim that Pakistan is prevented
from following a nonproliferation regime in the absence of "reciprocal
reduction on the part of neighboring countries."

Moreover, an effort is made to link the nuclear issue with the Indo-
Pakistani dispute over Kashmir by stressing that the nonresolution of
such long-standing differences forces an insecure Pakistan to retain its
nuclear program, which remains the "only potent deterrent against
aggression from India."42 The Pakistani stand on the Comprehensive
Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) reflects this position. Officials have stressed
that "the CTB will bring no dividends to South Asia if India is not on
board";43 that Pakistan will not sign the treaty if India abstains; and
that the Kashmir dispute remains "the key to the problems of South
Asia."44
Alignment and Security
Aware of the imbalances in Indo-Pakistani conventional and nuclear
capabilities, Pakistani policy makers have also consistently, over the
decades, attempted to acquire access to reliable external sources of
arms and assistance, with special emphasis on the establishment of a
security relationship with the United States. Thus in the Cold War
years of the 1950s and again during the 1980s, Pakistan's military
regimes skillfully manipulated anticommunist sentiments in the West,
through formal and informal alliances, to attain their multiple goals of
security against India, strengthening of their domestic position
through external assistance, and expansion of Pakistan's influence in
South and Southwest Asia.45
The flow of U.S. military and economic aid has, however, come to a
halt as Pakistan's strategic significance has declined with the collapse
of the bipolar world order and the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
Moreover, Pakistan's nuclear program has once again come to the fore
in U.S.-Pakistan relations.46 Since imposing an embargo in October
1990 on the supply and sale of weaponry to Pakistan, the United
States has continued to pressure Pakistan to abandon its nuclear
program. Pakistani governments, for their part, are attempting to
persuade the United States to revise its ban on the sale and supply of
military equipment and are hoping to counterbalance India's power
through the reestablishment of special ties with the United States
(Lodhi 1994a).
In their discussions with U.S. officials on the nuclear issue, Pakistani
authorities have continued to emphasize Pakistani perceptions of
threat

 Page 354
from India and the need for a regional approach that encompasses the
nuclear programs of both India and Pakistan.

47 In her address to the U.S. Congress in mid-1989, for example,

Prime Minister Bhutto stated that Pakistan did not possess or intend to
make a bomb and would be willing to accept any safeguards or
verification measures provided they were applied on a regional and
nondiscriminatory basis.48 Caretaker Prime Minister Moeen Qureshi,
during his visit to the United States, reiterated that Pakistan "cannot
commit suicide by accepting unilateral restrictions on its nuclear
program."49 Pakistani policy makers have also attempted to use the
nuclear card to bargain for concessions by asking the United States to
recognize Pakistan's restraint in capping its nuclear program and
calling on the United States to help Pakistan avoid depending solely
on its nuclear capability to deal with the Indian threat by helping it to
build up its conventional strength.50 These requests are accompanied
by calls for a greater U.S. role in South Asia.

Global and regional changes have heightened Pakistani perceptions of

vulnerability since economic factors have assumed greater importance
in an emerging multipolar system. It is now feared that India's rising
importance, economic and political, will further erode Pakistan's
position in the strategic perceptions of its former American ally.51
There is also apprehension that Pakistan's close ties with Chinapartly
the result of Cold War imperatives and partly the product of mutual
differences with Indiamight lose their relevance in the wake of the
dissolution of the Soviet Union and the ongoing Sino-Indian
rapprochement. For Pakistani policy makers, the Chinese continue to
play an important role in helping Pakistan to improve its military
balance vis-à-vis India. Chinese assistance has included the help
extended to Pakistan to launch its two indigenous ballistic missiles,
Hatf I and II, and reportedly includes the delivery of Chinese-built M-
11 missiles to Pakistan.52 However, the post-Cold War security
environment and U.S. pressures to curb the transfer of sensitive
technologies, together with new sources of threat arising out of
Islamic fundamentalism, could weaken the Sino-Pakistani
relationship. Moreover, a continuous easing of Sino-Indian tensions
could further limit Pakistan's utility for China.
Regional Influence and Intervention
In the context of these changing circumstances, alongside the policy
of trying to reestablish or consolidate alliances, Pakistani decision
makers are continuing to follow a decades-old strategy of enhancing
Pakistan's regional prestige as well as its bargaining power with
regional and extraregional actors by extending the country's influence
over neighboring states such as Afghanistan.

 Page 355
The communist takeover in Afghanistan in 1978 and the Soviet
intervention that followed gave General Zia-ul-Haq's military regime
an opportunity to gain international recognition and domestic
ascendancy as Pakistan became a major recipient of Western (in
particular U.S.) as well as Middle Eastern and Chinese military and
economic assistance. Zia's successor, Army Chief of Staff General
Aslam, also saw the Afghan situation as an opportunity to attain
"strategic depth" and to create a zone of Pakistani interest (Rubin
1989-90: 164). Although attempting to improve Pakistan's strategic
environment by expanding its influence over Afghanistan remains an
attractive option for the military, the Soviet withdrawal and the
subsequent decline of Afghanistan's importance for the West have
halted the flow of assistance. Meanwhile the continuation of the
Afghan civil war is contributing to Pakistani perceptions of threat
based on the presence of contending Afghan factions and a substantial
refugee population on Pakistani soil, the involvement of Pakistani
domestic factions in Afghan politics, and the existence of similar
ethnic communities on both sides of the Pakistani-Afghan border.
The perceptions of threat are compounded by the knowledge that
Pakistan's internal security environment has been adversely affected
by terrorism as well as by a cross-border drug trade, arms trafficking,
and other criminal activities that involve both Pakistani and Afghan
elements. Those problems are to some extent a side effect of outside
involvement in the Afghan war: two-thirds of the thousands of tons of
American weapons transferred to Afghanistan via Pakistan were
siphoned off at various points along the way,

53 and the production of opium and its refinement into heroin remains
a major source of income for Afghan and Pakistani political groups
and criminals (Siddiqi 1988; Hussain and Hussain 1993). Pakistani
policy makers are therefore pursuing strategies aimed at containing
hostile Afghan activity on Pakistani soil while retaining a dominant
role in Afghan politics to enhance Pakistan's regional influence and
acquire sufficient geostrategic importance to balance that of India.
Effective influence over Afghanistan, it is believed, will not only give
Pakistan greater leverage in its dealings with foreign powers but also
give it political and economic access to the newly independent Central
Asian republics (Naqvi 1994: 13-16).

Pakistani strategies have continued to focus in particular on the use of

surrogate forces in Afghanistan; such policies were adopted in the
early 1970s and rigorously implemented after the overthrow of the
Daud regime by the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan
(PDPA) in 1978. The ultimate goal of this strategy, in the current
context, is to install a "suitable" government in Kabul.54 Pakistan was,
for example, instrumental in creating an Afghan Interim Government
even before the

 Page 356
ouster of the PDPA government in 1992 (Weinbaum 1991). Pakistani-
dictated "peace formulas" have included the Peshawar accord of April
1992, which set up an interim government in Kabul, and the
Islamabad accord of March 1993, which instituted a power-sharing
formula. These accords have failed to resolve internecine Afghan
hostilities, however, while tensions have heightened between
Islamabad and the Afghan factions opposing the Taliban Islamic
Student Militia, a loosely organized group that surfaced for the first
time in October 1994 (Zulfikar 1994b) and has now gained control
over the Afghan capital and 22 of Afghanistan's 32 provinces.

55 Although Pakistan denies supporting the Taliban, most were

recruited from Pakistani soil, and many Pakistani politicians and
observers claim that Pakistan's military intelligence has close links
with the Taliban.56

Aware of the dangers arising from an escalation of tensions with

contending Afghan factions, Pakistani strategists have also made use
of diplomacy and bargaining through both open and closed channels.
Channels of communication, for example, have consistently been kept
open with less favored but influential Afghan politicians, such as
General Dostum, whose party controls much of Afghanistan's
northern belt that borders the Central Asian states of Uzbekistan and
Tajikistan. The Pakistani objective is to acquire the support of Afghan
factions for a power-sharing formula that would best suit Pakistan's
political, strategic, and economic interests.
Intervention and Diplomacy
A similar Pakistani strategy of using surrogate actors has been used
against India. Limited support, for example, was extended to Indian
insurgents in the Khalistan movement. Since the late 1980s, Pakistani
authorities have tacitly provided various levels of moral and material
support to anti-Indian elements in the disputed territory of Jammu and
Kashmir, mainly through fundamentalist Pakistani and Afghan parties
and activists.57 According to Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif, for
example, during his first term of office he provided central
government funds to the Jamaat-i-Islami, an extremist Islamic party
and a member of his governing coalition, to assist anti-Indian
elements in Jammu and Kashmir.58 This indirect use of force has been
accompanied by a sustained effort to acquire external support for
Pakistan's stand on the Kashmir issue, highlighting, in particular,
human rights abuses in Indian-held Kashmir and using the forums of
international organizations such as the U.N. Security Council and
General Assembly. Pakistani use of multilateral diplomacy also
extends to regional organizations such as the South Asian Association
for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).

 Page 357
Set up originally with the objective of increasing sociocultural,
economic, and environmental cooperation in the hope of reducing
tensions in South Asia,

59 SAARC has made little progress because of interstate differences

and mistrust. For Pakistani policy makers, SAARC's usefulness lies
partly in its potential for exploiting fears of India's hegemonic designs
with respect to smaller states such as Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and to a
lesser degree Nepal, while projecting Pakistan as a counterweight to
offset India's power in the region. At the same time, this international
alliance-building has been accompanied by preventive diplomacy to
avoid an outbreak of conflict, in view of Pakistan's military weakness
in comparison to India. At times of high levels of tensionduring
Exercise Brasstacks in 1987,60 for exampleand more recently to
defuse tensions arising from the Kashmir dispute, secret diplomacy
and top-level contacts have been used as crisis management tools.

This strategy of negotiating is primarily aimed not at resolving

disputes but at managing conflict. The interests of Pakistan's dominant
decision-making unit, the military, would not in fact be served by a
comprehensive resolution of Indo-Pakistan differences, because its
demands for a substantial percentage of the state's economic resources
are based on the ground of the Indian threat.
Internal Conflict and State Control
Pakistan's strategies to counter internal threats emphasize coercion
and intervention with the purpose of reasserting state control. In its
rhetoric, the military's continued political intervention is ostensibly
intended to prevent an internally divided and irresponsible political
leadership from threatening the state's autonomy and security. The
dismissal of the PPP government in 1990, for example, was partly
justified by Army Chief of Staff General Beg on the ground that "the
army would not allow" the conflict between the government and its
Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI; the Islamic Democratic Alliance)
opponents "to tear the nation apart."61
Because it is the military that decides whether a civilian government
will remain in office, political leaders are aware that the main threat to
their retention of power comes from within the state apparatus itself,
not from domestic discontent. As a result, their overriding concern is
to obtain the military's approval by accepting its policies in all
sensitive areas, including the allocation of the state's resources and the
formulation of internal and external security policies. As a
sophisticated system of checks and balances limits the autonomy of
the civilian leadership, civil society remains weak while the military's
corporate interests are advanced.

 Page 358
In the absence of structural change, human rights advocates are
pressing for a transformation of this semiauthoritarian system into a
functioning democracy.

62 As violence with criminal and political roots increases throughout

the society, these advocates stress the need to find remedies that will,
for example, institute state-imposed sanctions on the perpetrators of
such violence.63

But the central decision makers are not averse to providing rewards, if
necessary, to attain their ultimate goal of reasserting the state's
control. In Malakand division in 1994, for example, when
fundamentalist groups violently opposed state authority, law
enforcement agencies used force to contain the uprising, but they also
attempted to cajole the disputing parties through a partial enforcement
of Islamic legislation.64 Faced by renewed Islamist violence in mid-
June 1995, the NWFP government again sought to appease the
agitators by promising the appointment of qualified Islamic judges for
the Malakand division (Yusufzai 1996).
Ethnic and Sectarian Violence
Pakistani governments of the day appear unable or unwilling to
guarantee the security of minority communities against violence
perpetrated by extremist parties and groups belonging to the majority
Sunni denomination. Minorities such as the Christians, Hindus, and
Ahmediyas are either too weak economically and politically or too
small numerically to challenge the various threats posed by
discriminatory state legislation,65 government inaction, and Sunni
fundamentalism. Elements of the minority Shia sect, however, have
opted to protect themselves through violent means. Militant factions
such as the Sipah-e-Mohammed Pakistan (Soldiers of Mohammed)
target Sunni fundamentalist groups and supporters, especially the
Anjuman-Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (Soldiers of the Sahaba: the
companions and political heirs of Mohammed), the most active in
anti-Shia violence.66
Ethnic conflict poses an even more pervasive threat to state control.
To counter such threats, as in the external domain, the state has
adopted coercive strategies, accompanied by negotiation, when
domestic tensions have been seen as presenting serious challenges to
state control. Yet state policies have themselves contributed to
political polarization and ethnic conflict. Aside from authoritarian and
centralized structures of governance and the use of force to stifle
ethnic dissent, the military's political role and its ethnic policies have
played a significant role in promoting ethnic divisions. The capture of
state power by an ethnically skewed (Punjabi-dominated) military, its
subsequent policies of excluding "unreliable" ethnic groups from its
ranks, the economic exploitation of the state's resources to meet the
military's corporate interests, the

 Page 359
absence of representative institutions, and the forcible suppression of
political opposition led the majority Bengali population of the eastern
wing to opt for secession in 1971, which led in turn to the
dismemberment of Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh.
In post-1971 Pakistan, the Punjabi-dominated military still identifies
itself with the nation-state.

67 It perceives ethnic demands for autonomy and a restructuring of

centralized governing structures as threats to the legitimacy and
autonomy of that state, and it frequently resorts to manipulation and
force to retain control.68 As a result, ethnic-state, interethnic, and
intraethnic tensions have grown. Because the incumbent power
holders are perceived to be partisan ethnic actors, the state's
legitimacy is gradually eroding, especially in the province of Sindh
(Ahmed 1995).

Ethnic Conflict in Sindh

During the 1980s and the early 1990s, ethnic Sindhis resisting military
rule were subjected to systematic suppression, and Muhajirs (migrants
and their descendants from northern India), represented by their party,
the Muhajir Qaumi Movement (MQM), were used by the military as a
counterweight to Sindhi dissent. Inevitably, the policy led to an
intensification of Sindhi-Muhajir tensions (Ahmed 1988: 33). The
military's subsequent creation of factions within the MQM, such as
the Haqiqis, to control an increasingly ambitious Muhajir leadership
under Altaf Hussain led to violent intraethnic clashes.69 In 1995
alone, more than 1,950 people were killed in intraethnic violence, in
clashes with law enforcement agencies, or in judicial custody,
including 222 members of law enforcement agencies in Karachi
(Sindh's provincial capital).70
Aside from engaging in coercive tactics, state authorities have also
attempted to justify their ethnic management strategies and contain
ethnic violence by laying the blame on the external threat. Throughout
the military operations in rural Sindh, for example, the military
claimed that Sindhi political dissent was inspired by India (Mujtaba
1991; Mirza 1991). When military operations were shifted to urban
Sindh, it was claimed that Altaf Hussain's MQM, which had earlier
been called a "strong shield against anti-Pakistan forces" by the head
of Inter-Services Intelligence, was a party of Indian-trained
terrorists.71 As intraethnic violence escalates between the two factions
of the MQM, military officials claim that "whenever the situation in
Kashmir worsens, we see a rise of violence in Sindh" (Hanif 1995:
31).
The political leadership is equally prone to use the Indian "threat" to
gain domestic support, weaken its opponents, and divert attention
from pressing internal problems. Faced by MQM violence, the Bhutto

 Page 360
government claimed that the violence was Indian-inspired. According
to then foreign minister Sardar Assef Ali, there was "evidence that the
Indians are behind the Sindh situation. They use Karachi as a
launching pad for various sabotage activities. They want to weaken
Pakistan and that's why they encourage criminal gangs there."

72 In the wake of violence in Karachi, the Indian consulate there was

closed. As violence in Karachi continued, so too did Pakistani
accusations of Indian and even Afghan intervention in Sindh.73

Political leaders as well as the military have resorted to co-optive and

divide-and-rule strategies in Sindh. Both the Bhutto and Sharif
governments, during their first terms of office, entered into alliances
with the MQM to offset their political opposition, and later acquiesced
to military-directed operations against the MQM. The military, for its
part, has either opposed or supported Muhajir and Sindhi
ethnonationalist groups and parties to advance its perceived corporate
interests. Mir Murtaza Bhutto, for example, had been declared a
terrorist by military courts but was allowed by the military to form his
party and to contest elections in a bid to divide the PPP vote bank in
Sindh. PPP leaders now claim that PPP (Shaheed Bhutto), the splinter
party led by his widow, Ghinwa Bhutto, has the support of the
security apparatus.74
Strategies based on co-optation and divide-and-rule have been used, in
Sindh and elsewhere, with several goals in mind: containment of
political dissent; maintenance of the social, economic, and political
status quo; and promotion and protection of the interests of dominant
state actors, including the armed forces, against perceived internal
challenges and threats. But it is the unresponsive internal order and
the shrinking pool of economic resources that continue to promote
political violence, posing threats to the security interests, internal and
external, of Pakistan's central decision makers.
Whither Pakistani Security?
As Pakistan approaches the twenty-first century, it finds itself at a
crossroads. The path its decision makers take will determine the future
shape of the state and the destiny of its people. Although there has
been no radical departure from past thinkingsecurity is still defined as
narrowly as it has been over the last five decadesthere could well be a
change in the present direction of the state as a result of internal and
external pressures.
The present state-centered conception of national security will,
however, remain in place should the ongoing democratic process fail
to lead to the gradual reassertion of civilian control over the military.
In the

 Page 361
absence of structural change that would allow for an opening of the
political system, internal tensions are likely to intensify even further
and could assume threatening proportions. The state's failure to
contain urban conflict in Sindh is one indicator of the serious nature of
internal threats to national security. Another sign is the inability of
law enforcement agencies to protect the citizenry against widespread
politically and criminally motivated violence.
Domestic extremism, overpopulation, environmental degradation,
drug trafficking, an illegal trade in arms, a substantial refugee
presence, a deteriorating economy, the absence of an institutionalized
democratic framework, strategies based on coercion and
manipulationall combine to erode the state's ability to assert effective
control over its territory and its population. It appears, however, that
Pakistan's decision makers either are underestimating the urgency of
these threats or believe that their present strategies can contain them.
An external enemy is needed to buttress internal security by diverting
attention from politically divisive issues and creating a national
consensus based on the external threat; therefore the present strategies
of military deterrence and military power are unlikely to be replaced
by diplomatic bargaining. Pakistan's continuing to depend on military
power, both conventional and nuclear, and to ignore the geostrategic
reality of its neighborhood could bring serious repercussions, for
Pakistan has a history of conflict with India and the balance of power
obviously favors its much larger neighbor.
Although policy makers believe that an immediate physical threat can
be averted through a policy based on nuclear deterrence, the
continuation of Indo-Pakistani tensions not only will retard the growth
of South Asian regionalism but also will increase the dangers of
conflict, which need not encompass the nuclear dimension. At the
same time, civil society and its institutions will further weaken
because a politicized military will be legitimized as the ultimate shield
against the external threat. Domestically, moreover, excessive defense
spending at the cost of socioeconomic development will gradually
erode the legitimacy of government as it fails to meet the pressing
needs of a vast majority of its citizens.
Pakistan's strategy of conducting a surrogate war in the disputed
territory of Kashmir could also undermine its security (Lodhi 1993:
28c). An accidental war could result from a spillover of the conflict
across the Line of Actual Control,

75 or even from the domestic compulsions of an Indian central

government attempting to divert attention from the conflict by
embarking on a limited war. Given that an exercise of the nuclear
option in a limited conflict is highly unlikely, the conventional

 Page 362
arms imbalance between the two states would work to Pakistan's
disadvantage.
Alliance-Building, External Assistance, and Military Power
Pakistan's dependence on strategies of formal or informal alliance-
building will not successfully address its security concerns if Indo-
Pakistan tensions continue to rise. Effective use of the SAARC forum
to settle interstate scores will be hampered by the economic
interdependence and political constraints of the smaller states imposed
by their relations with India. Nor is Pakistan likely to be any more
successful in its attempts to gain access to U.S. military power to
counterbalance its regional rival.
Pakistan's projection of an Indian threat and its drive to acquire
conventional weapons, which would allow it to restrain its nuclear
program, could bear fruit in the foreseeable future in the form of a
removal of the U.S. ban on the sale of spare parts and even arms.
Furthermore, Pakistan can still offer tangible incentives for a renewed,
but limited, security relationship by supporting U.S. goals in the
Middle East and by playing a role in containing terrorist threats to
U.S. security emanating from its unstable Asian neighborhood.

76 Pakistani authorities have already demonstrated their willingness to

assist the Americans in these areas, offering troops during the Gulf
War and extraditing suspected terrorists and drug traffickers to the
United States.77 Should the need arise, Pakistan would also be willing
to promote U.S. objectives in other sensitive areas of its immediate
neighborhood, such as the Central Asian republics.

After former Prime Minister Bhutto's visit to the United States in

April 1995, it appeared that Pakistan's potential assets and its
continued overtures had borne fruit: the U.S. Senate approved a one-
time waiver of the Pressler Amendment in September, permitting the
supply to Pakistan of $368 million worth of military equipment that
had been embargoed since 1990, along with the removal of economic
and nonmilitary sanctions imposed by the amendment. Justifying this
shift in U.S. policy, administration figures such as Defense Secretary
William Perry have argued that it is in America's interest to improve
relations with Pakistan, a ''moderate Islamic democracy in a troubled
region," warning that the ability of the United States "to work with
Pakistan to achieve non-proliferation goals is eroding" because the
"status quo...offers few incentives."78 Though Prime Minister Bhutto
called the passage of the Brown Amendment a "great moral
victory,"79 a drastic change in U.S. policy toward Pakistan is unlikely
as long as Pakistan retains its nuclear option.

 Page 363
Under pressure from other key countries such as JapanPakistan's
largest donor of overseas assistance and a major source of private
investmentPakistani leaders make repeated pledges that they would
pursue the nonnuclear path if the Indian threat were to recede. During
her visit to Japan in January 1996, for example, Prime Minister Bhutto
stressed that the "world understands Japan's special sensitivity to the
issue of nuclear proliferation." Although Pakistan "strongly endorses
the commitment to nonproliferation in our region," she continued, it
has no choice but to retain its nuclear option because ''we live in a
rough neighborhood and we are determined not to be bullied."

80 As in the case of the United States, however, Pakistan's nuclear

policies will continue to create strains in its relations with an
important source of funding. And Pakistan's defense spending, for
both its conventional and its nuclear programs, is likely to become a
major obstacle in its future dealings with other influential institutions
such as the World Bank and the IMF.

Regional Expansionism and National Security

Pakistan's strategies of expanding its regional influence and strategic
depth vis-à-vis India by playing a dominant, interventionist role in
Afghan affairs are equally likely to have an adverse impact on its
national security. In the external sphere, Pakistani support for the
Taliban brought its relations with the anti-Taliban alliance to a new
low. As the relationship continues to deteriorate, General Dostum's
spokesman, for example, accuses the Taliban of being "the puppets of
Pakistan," incapable of taking "independent decisions."81
As a result of Pakistan's Afghan policy, its relations with Iran have
deteriorated as well. Since the capture of Afghanistan's western
provinces, bordering on Iran, by the Sunni fundamentalist Taliban,
Iran has adopted an interventionist stance to safeguard its interests and
those of the Afghan Shia minority by supporting the Rabbani-Wahdat-
Dostum alliance against the Taliban. High-level talks have been held
between the Pakistani and Iranian governments on the Afghan issue,82
yet Pakistan acknowledges that there is a "major difference in
perception" on the Afghan issue.83
This rivalry between Iran and Pakistan in the Afghan context is
closely linked with their competition for access to the resource-rich
Central Asian republics via neighboring Afghanistan. While Iran has
established a rail link with Turkmenistan, opening its ports for Central
Asian trade, Pakistan has consistently made efforts to acquire
economic and political access to Central Asia through Afghan
territory. Indeed, it was the difficulty of opening a trade route via
Peshawar, due to differences with the Kabul regime, that led Pakistan
to back the Taliban

 Page 364
offensive. Pakistan's ultimate aim is to gain control over an alternate
route, via Pakistani Baluchistan, to the western Afghan provinces of
Kandahar and Herat and hence to Turkmenistan.

84

The Taliban now control 26 of Afghanistan's 32 provinces. In the last

week of May 1997, Taliban forces, in alliance with defecting
commanders including Uzbek General Abdul Malik, captured three
provinces in northern Afghanistan and entered Dostum's capital of
Mazar-i-Sharif. Soon after, Pakistan extended formal recognition to
the Taliban government in Kabul, urging the international community
to follow suit.85 The Taliban advance was accompanied by Iranian
accusations of Pakistani interference in Afghan affairs as President
Rabbani and the Hizb-i-Islami chief, Hekmatyar, went into exile in
Iran and the Taliban confronted Shia Wahdat forces in Bamiyan
province. General Dostum and his Central Asian allies, including
Uzbek President Islam Karimov also accused Pakistan of intervening
on the side of the Taliban.86 Even as all countries bordering on
Afghanistan, with Pakistan's exception, were expressing concern at
the Taliban advance to the north,87 there was a reversal of Taliban
fortunes when Malik's forces switched their allegiance once again,
forcing the Taliban to retreat from Mazar and other northern provinces
in the wake of hundreds of Taliban casualties.88 Although the
Pakistan government stresses that its recognition of the Taliban
government is "based on objective realities,"89 there is no guarantee
that its Taliban allies will succeed in stabilizing their precarious
control over the territories they govern.
Pakistan's stand on Afghanistan has adversely affected its relations
with important regional and extraregional actors, including Iran,
Uzbekistan, and Russia. The Central Asian republics are concerned
about the spread of Islamic fundamentalism from across the Afghan
border. It is that fear of Islamic resurgence, which has already
contributed substantially to political instability within Tajikistan, that
has led the Uzbek government to extend support to General Dostum's
army (Fange 1995: 23). The Taliban advance has also created
differences between Pakistan and Russia: the latter provides support
to the Rabbani-Wahdat-Dostum alliance against the upsurge of Sunni
fundamentalismrepresented by the Talibanthat threatens Russian
security in its hinterland (Quinn-Judge 1997).
Aside from the potentially adverse repercussions of its Afghan policy
in the external context, Pakistan's internal security could be seriously
affected even if it were to succeed in its efforts to install a "suitable"
government in Afghanistan through continued manipulation of the
Afghan political process. Afghan groups, contesting the legitimacy of
any such future setup, could extend their intraparty struggle across the

 Page 365
border into Pakistani territory. There are already indications of the
negative consequences of Pakistan's interventionist strategy in Afghan
politics. The close links established between Pakistani religious
parties and their Afghan counterparts are beginning to pose a threat to
both Pakistani civil society and the state, as was witnessed during the
Malakand armed uprising of 1994 (Mehdi 1994: 36).
The continued presence of Afghan refugees is another potential threat.
Apart from the ecological destruction caused by the refugee presence
in Baluchistan and the NWFP, tensions between locals and refugees
could assume more dangerous proportions in the future and could
even erupt into conflict as ethnic and socioeconomic competition
intensifies. At the same time, a perpetuation of the civil war in
Afghanistan through external intervention will provide disgruntled
Pakistani factions, such as MQM militants in Sindh, with continued
access to sophisticated weapons for use in their armed conflict with
the authorities of the state.
The Crisis Within
Ultimately it is the policies adopted to deal with internal instability
that will determine the security of the Pakistani state. So far, a reliance
on coercion, co-optation, and manipulation has enabled Pakistan's
dominant military to combat the immediate internal challenges. The
political leadership within the major parties appears to have
internalized the military's superiority: politicians are hesitant to
challenge the corporate interests of the armed forces and the civil
bureaucracy, and violence, ethnic and sectarian, has not broken the
control of the state over most of the country. Yet the very use of these
strategies by the military threatens the state's security because their
objective is not to resolve political differences but merely to contain
violence, which is the product and not the source of domestic
challenges to the state. In the absence of a sustained effort to negotiate
internal disputes through democratic institutions, incidents of
politically motivated violence will inevitably increase and could take
on more serious dimensions in the future.
The security implications of the state's internal strategiesfostering a
sense of national identity and loyalty to the state by externalizing
domestic disputeswill continue to spill over into the external domain
and hinder the resolution of interstate disputes. The use of official
propaganda in both domestic and international forums to create
hostility toward India, for example, could make it extremely difficult
to resort to diplomatic bargaining, even if such a course should
become desirable for

 Page 366
Pakistan's overall security. It is becoming apparent that the directions
of state policy in Pakistan are in fact creating new categories of threat,
both internal and external, while they fail to address the present
security risks to the Pakistani citizenry and the state. Although the
physical contours of Pakistan are unlikely to change, as they did when
a majority of its citizens opted for secession in 1971,

90 there will be a gradual and inevitable erosion of the state's

authority. As a result, there will be, in the long term, neither security
for the state nor security for its citizens.

 Page 367

11
Sri Lanka
The Many Faces Of Security
Nira Wickramasinghe
If we have to live as minorities, we might as well live in a place that
promises security to the children.
KAMALA, a victim of the 1983 riots
Over two hundred thousand people have been liberated by the security
forces. Over one thousand families have been cleared so far by the security
forces to return to Vallikaman division. Security forces captured a van
transporting terrorists. All terrorists were killed on the spot.
GOVERNMENT COMMUNIQUÉ, Operation Riviresa II, April 1996

As we try to understand the state's conception of security in Sri Lanka,

it is important to recognize that there are a multiplicity of voices
speaking about national security. Some of these challenge or even
contest the state's conception of security.

1 Security, it appears, is not a static phenomenon but a changing,

wavering perception. Borrowing from Ashis Nandy's formulation, I
would liken it to an "amoeba" word that can take any shape and
convey any meaning (Nandy 1994: 1) This chapter starts with the
premise that security per se does not exist. There are only conceptions
of securityand hence of national securitythat vary from agent to agent,
from consciousness to consciousness, along lines of community, class,
and gender, and over time. Conceptions of security can be understood
only in the context of the discourse, conventions of argument, habits,
customs, and political actions that produce them. Thus my focus is
both on national security as it has been defined by the state at


 Page 368
different periods and on the challenges put forward by groups that
contest the state's definition. Above all, I wish to address perceptions
or narratives of security that are not usually given a voice in academic
studies. Although marginalized, such perceptions inform the
consciousness of many Sri Lankans. But do these muted voices count?
To what extent do they pose a challenge to the state's perception of
security? Do they in any way influence power?
In Sri Lanka, it is possible to distinguish at least three different
conceptions of state security. The first is the state's definition of
security as national security, a conception rooted in the notion of
territoriality and infused with the idea that the security of the whole
equals the security of its components. In this view, the primary threat
to security is external. This conception has dominated state thinking
and behavior since independence. Since the Janata Vimukti Peramuna
(JVP) insurrection in 1971 and the wars in the north and east in the
1980s, however, internal concerns have begun to dominate. This
second notion of state security, with its emphasis on internal threats, is
now being displaced at the state level, under the new government of
Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge, by a third conception. The
new government, which has close links with human rights groups and
the nongovernmental sector on the whole, has proposed a concept of
national security that encompasses human values as well. The
limitations of this third conception of security, however, are
evidenced by the violent secessionist challenge the state faces from
the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the military option
it has been compelled to adopt after the collapse of negotiations
between the state and the LTTE.
The first part of this chapter examines the state's three conceptions of
national security. The second investigates the nongovernmental
approach to security and its impact on the state approach. The final
part examines other challenges to the state's conception of security
that stem from antisystemic groups such as the Janata Vimukti
Peramuna, which on two occasions has tried through violent means to
capture power, and also from the Buddhist Sangha (order of Buddhist
monks). We will then assess the importance of their voices in the
national context.
National Security as State Security: Evolutionfrom External to
Internal Considerations
For the person on the street, security has many meaningsfrom "safety
as in job security" to "the country and the people living free of
troubles."

2 In a way these meanings reflect the perception of many scholars

today who concede that security is not confined to military

 Page 369
security, which can be defined as the absence of threat or conflict.
Security does have its intrinsic positive elementspresence of values,
satisfaction of needs, a sense of feeling secure and striving unhindered
for growth and developmentbut the concept also implies subtle threats
to economic, social, and cultural independence. Until recently,
however, academics and diplomats in Sri Lanka rarely accepted a
maximalist definition of security such as that of James N. Rosenau,
who defines security both in the personal sense of securing a
meaningful identity and in the collective sense of maintaining
territorial integrity, political stability, and economic well-being
(Rosenau 1994). When speaking of security, state officials and
international relations specialists still tend to focus on the security of
the state. Let us begin by examining the state discourse on security,
which is mirrored in mainstream academic writings on security, while
noting that the understanding of security has changed over the years.
Since independence it is fairly safe to say that the state rhetoric of
security in Sri Lanka has been primarily about national security rather
than people's security. Like most rhetoric encouraged by the state and
the major mass media, the language of national security is not
innocent. The noble cause of safeguarding the nation is used to confer
legitimacy on other, perhaps less noble, causes and acts.
To analyze the state's conceptions of security one has to rely, if
cautiously, on selected documents of the state, such as the speeches of
officials, to get at the dynamics below the surface. One must also be
aware that those officials do not usually base their actions on carefully
formulated sets of objectives. Many government transactions are
unplanned; important decisions are often made in response to urgent
pressures rather than as part of a coherent and farsighted policy. It is
also useful to distinguish between the "declaratory" and the
"operational" objectives of policy makers.
Official definitions of security lean toward a realist approachthat is,
security is defined primarily from the military-strategic perspective
and the focus is on protecting the state from physical attacks from
within and without. The object of national security is to preserve the
state or, in Aristotelian terms, to achieve "the good for the state." In
this sense the good of the individual is considered secondary by Sri
Lanka's policy makers, who indeed could have cited Aristotle:
"Though it is worthwhile to attain the end merely for one man, it is
finer and more godlike to attain it for a nation or for city-states" (Sen
1990: 4). But again, is it correct to speak of a state approach without
differentiating between the governments that have ruled the country
since independence? How did the state's policy makers understand
security in the 1950s and 1960s? Did they actually think in the same
terms?

 Page 370
The Foreign Policy Approach: External Threats to Security
My purpose here is not to give a chronological account of the security
problems during a certain period but to show how the framework of
discourse has shifted from the external to the internal. According to
mainstream thinking, both official and academic, the major security
problems for most of the countries in South Asia have to do with their
relationship with India. As Shelton U. Kodikara has observed, the
"security dilemma" that confronts the South Asian states arises from
the fact that the region is militarily Indocentric. The fundamental
security problem, he says, is one in which the states peripheral to
India seek a maximization of security vis-à-vis India while India itself
seeks to regionalize security within a subcontinental framework
(Kodikara 1993: 8). Most studies of Sri Lanka's security adopt a
regional outlook: Sri Lanka can be understood only as part of South
Asia or the world system.
Gamini Keerawella stresses that fear of Big Brother was one of the
main elements of the defense-oriented perspective of the first United
National Party (UNP) government of 1948-56. Even in the 1970s
during Sirimavo Bandaranaike's premiership, Indo-Sri Lankan
relations were characterized by suspicion. The demarcation of the
maritime boundary between the two countries in the Palk Strait and
the Gulf of Mannar was a high priority (Keerawella 1990: 180). In the
1970s and 1980s, the development of the Indian Ocean as a zone of
peace was perceived as central to Sri Lanka's security. The conference
on the Indian Ocean due to be held in 1981 never materialized,
however, and the U.N. Declaration of the Indian Ocean as a Peace
Zone has yet to be implemented (Kodikara 1990). Thus in the state's
conception, Sri Lanka's security could be maintained by a sort of
cordon sanitaire wrapped around its coastline. In the writings of Sri
Lankan analysts one finds that the notion of a secure boundary and
territorial protection is at the core of the state's appreciation of
security. The regime in power is irrelevant. Thus, for all intents and
purposes, security is equated with national security whether in the
language of diplomats or mainstream academics. Until the mid-1950s,
threats to national security were perceived as coming from outside.
After the emergence of a militant Tamil separatist movement in Sri
Lanka, the state's apprehension sharpened and was long focused on
the possibility of Indian military intervention in support of Tamil
militants in the northern province. The state has what is often called a
minority complex vis-à-vis the subcontinent, where 65 million Tamils
live. Not only has Sri Lanka never integrated with the mainland
economies on the subcontinent, it has in fact made overtures for
membership in the

 Page 371
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 1981 and 1984.
This policy was guided by Colombo's interest in attracting ASEAN
capital to the free industrial zones under preferential terms. But
security too played an important part. Sri Lanka was interested in
obtaining support from the informal ASEAN security system because
of its apprehension over the external threat posed by the possibility of
Indian intervention. Due to these preoccupations, Colombo's
commitment to the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation
(SAARC) was somewhat questionable at the outset. It was during the
UNP era, in 1987, that an Indian peacekeeping force landed in the
northeast of Sri Lanka to disarm the Tamil militantsthus, in the
common perception, threatening the sovereignty of the state of Sri
Lanka. Not surprisingly, after this event the fear of an Indian invasion
of the islandand of Indian interference in the general affairs of the
countryremained the central security issue. But the 1987 intervention
by the Indian peacekeeping force also broke the psychological barrier.
The Indians had indeed come, but they left in 1989. P. R. Chari
questions the Indian hegemony thesis. First, he argues, the approach
ignores the superpower's role in exacerbating subcontinental tensions.
And second, it ignores subregional tensions (Chari 1987: 50-60). In
the case of the Tamil militant movement in Sri Lanka, it is obvious
that ethnopolitical issues spilled across national boundaries.
Violence and the Internal Dimension
Two events led to a change in the state's perception of security as a
predominantly external concern. The first was the JVP revolt in 1971.
The second was the escalation of the armed struggle of the LTTE in
the northern and eastern provinces in the early 1980s.
The Janata Vimukti Peramuna Insurrections: Security as Order
In 1971 the JVP, a violent political movement, tried to topple the
leftist government of Sirimavo Bandaranaike but failed. It resumed
the effort in the late 1980s in an even more violent manner using
murder, torture, and intimidation. The trigger for this resurgence was
the 1987 Indo-Sri Lankan Accord, which sanctioned the use of Indian
troops in Sri Lanka to quell the LTTE in the north and east. The JVP
movement nearly succeeded in destroying the state institutions but
was crushed by the Sri Lankan security forces working with death
squads.
In social and ideological terms, the JVP is made up of radical
Sinhalese Buddhists who are both anti-Tamil and anti-Indian. Many of
its members are political and social reformers drawn from the
educated unemployed youth of the south. In 1971, the JVP sought to
"save" the

 Page 372
country from eastern imperialism and Indian expansionist designs. In
1987-89, it again sought to "save" the country from an unholy trinity
of American imperialism, Indian imperialism, and Tamil
expansionism. The JVP became a security issue: for the first time the
state had to face serious internal threats. The JVP insurrection was
first analyzed by state officials and mainstream academics as an
antistate movement that would have to be crushed by the security
forces to safeguard the legitimate state. There is at the core of Sri
Lanka's state ideology the notion of its responsibility to ensure a
dharmista samajaya, a just society. The state and its security forces
see the "dharmista society" as one where social justice prevails but
can be achieved only through political stability. The ruler and his
agents undertake to govern righteously, to provide for all citizens
according to their merits and virtues, and to bring about material
benefits for the ruled. In return, the ruled are expected to accept the
status quo and to confine their dissent within the bounds of the
political order. Crushing the JVP insurrection was a security
imperative, therefore, that the state and the security forces took upon
themselves to undertake.
In 1971 and 1988-89, national security was not all-inclusive: it meant,
in effect, protecting the legitimacy of the ruling classes, which were
threatened by a political revolt of disadvantaged youth who were
attempting to capture state power. The JVP's activities were described
in the state media as subversive threats to the state that could be dealt
with only through the use of the Public Security Act. In 1971, when
officials defined the political threat posed by the insurgents as a
security problem, security was understood as "order" or as
preservation of the status quo. There were plans to "tighten security
all over Ceylon," and Mrs. Bandaranaike proclaimed she was "ready
for any threat to the peace.''
3

Although the 1971 insurrection and the JVP's resurgence in the 1980s
were explained by officials as a security threat to the state, and
thereby used as a rationale for the state's authoritarian tendencies,
those two events were not described as security problems by political
analysts until the late 1980s. In political science works dealing with
developments in Sri Lanka and in specific studies of the JVPwhere,
interestingly, the term security is invisible4the analytical framework
was different. It is only since the late 1980s, and in studies specifically
pertaining to security, that the concept of security is used to analyze
political threats from within such as the JVP (Werake and Jayasekera
1995). It is no coincidence that the inclusion of security as an
analytical concept to appraise internal threats to the state was adopted
at the time Tamil militancy began to pose a serious threat to the state.

 Page 373
Ethnic Conflict and Security of the South
The ethnic conflict became a security problem for the state only in the
1980s when the Sri Lankan police and military were incapable of
suppressing the increasingly violent LTTE struggle in the northern
and eastern provinces and Colombo was under threat from terrorist
attacks and bombs. When the ethnic conflict began to affect the
majority community, it became a security issue.
The Sri Lanka Tamilsor Ceylon Tamils, as they were called until the
1970sconstitute 12.6 percent of the total population; the Up-Country
Tamils, whose antecedents were brought from southern India by the
British in the nineteenth century to work as laborers in the new
plantation sector, constitute 5.5 percent. The Sri Lanka Tamils live
mainly in the northern and eastern parts of the island, whereas the Up-
Country Tamils live in the central highlands where the tea plantations
are located.
The demand for a separate state for the Tamil people arose from the
failure of repeated attempts to meet Sri Lanka Tamil aspirations. This
failure, together with growing economic problems and rising
unemployment, contributed to the rise of assertive and aggressive
Tamil militancy.
There was a difference in degree between the nonviolent methods
used by the Federal Party and the Tamil United Liberation Front to
push for their separatist demands and the later use of terrorist
methods, particularly suicide bombers, against civilians in the south
by the LTTE.
There was first a "communal problem." At the time of independence,
the Ceylon Tamils held a disproportionately high number of jobs in
the prestigious Ceylon Civil Service and places in the most important
higher education faculties (Wickramasinghe 1995). To combat the
advantages enjoyed by Tamils after independence, the Sinhalese
majority adopted two policies that are the source of much of the
subsequent discontent of the Tamils: a "Sinhala only" language policy
and a quota system based on race and residence (referred to as
"standardization") for admission to university. When the Sinhala Only
Act was adopted in 1956, a proposal to include a clause on the use of
Tamil was dropped because of pressure from extremist Buddhist
groups. Tamil protests led in 1956 to the Bandaranaike-
Chelvanayakam Pact, which provided for the use of Tamil in Tamil
areas and would have established regional councils with powers to
enact agriculture, education, and colonization schemes. The pact was
never implementedagain because of strong objections by Buddhist
elementsand in 1958 the first major outbreak of communal violence
occurred.

 Page 374
In the 1950s with the resurgence of Sinhalese nationalism and the
emergence of the Federal Party, which pressed for a Tamil homeland,
officials came to look upon national security not only as an interstate
problem but also as an internal issue: protecting the unity of the state.
"We must find a formula to preserve the unity and maintain the unity
of Ceylon," said S. Corea, minister of commerce, trade, and fisheries,
to his Chilaw electorate in 1956.

5 The term security, however, was still not commonly coupled with
internal. The crisis facing the country in the mid-1950s was described
as a communal problem rather than a security issue.

In 1958 a rumor that a Tamil had killed a Sinhalese sparked off

nationwide communal riots. Hundreds of people, mostly Tamils, died.
A dusk-to-dawn curfew was declared throughout the country, press
censorship was enforced, and the Federal Party was banned. The
governor general, Sir Oliver Goonetilleke, declared a state of
emergency on the island "in the interests of public security, the
preservation of public order, and the maintenance of supplies and
services essential to the life of the community."6 After 1958, national
security took on a wider meaning that encompassed not only
preserving the integrity and unity of the state but also protecting the
people. Security of the people gradually began to mean security of the
majority community, the southern people who faced threats from
aliens.
A watershed in the "Sinhalization" of the state came in May 1972 with
the passage of the republican constitution, which asserted Sinhalese
Buddhist cultural forms and contained weaker protection for
minorities. For many Tamils the 1972 constitutional provisions on
religion and language confirmed their feeling of being second-class
citizens. Their sense of alienation was further reinforced by the United
Front government's policies on university entrance, which brought
down dramatically the proportion of Tamils entering the university.
The Tamil response was first civil disobedience and then separatism.
In 1976 the Tamil United Liberation Front demanded the formation of
a separate state of Tamil Eelam in the areas that were considered the
Tamil homelands in the north and east. Those areas accounted for
two-thirds of the coastline and one-third of the country. This demand
paved the way for militants, who began by assassinating Tamils
associated with the ruling party and then started attacking state targets
(Nissan 1996).
Tensions between Tamils and Sinhalese increased during the Sri
Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) rule of Mrs. Bandaranaike, and a major
outbreak of violence occurred in August 1977, only a few months
after the election of the Jayawardene-led United National Party (UNP)
government. The third major outbreak of communal violence occurred

 Page 375
in August 1981. Mutual fear and anger had developed as terrorist
attacks against police in the north increased, accompanied by the
detention of Tamil youths incommunicado and by arson and looting
by police in Jaffna. Their burning of the Jaffna Public Library, a
Tamil cultural center, was particularly resented and is still referred to
as an early example of the lawlessness of the security forces.
Once the LTTE began to retaliate by sending suicide squads to the
capital to destroy army or business establishmentsin the process
killing civilians in the souththe state's definition of security gained a
further complexity. The new understanding privileges the security of
the south, because its institutions and people are under threat from
terrorist attacks. Although national security has assumed a new
dimensionthe security of the south is now given higher priority than
that of any other regionthe notion of territorial integrity remains at the
core. Every night the state television news broadcast updates the
"security situation" by giving a head count of the number of soldiers
and terrorists killed in the northeast, an account of any terrorist attack
perpetrated in the south, and measures taken to ensure the safety of
the capital. The emphasis, however, is on the square footage of
territory captured by the army in its various operations, not on the
lives and deaths of human beings.
For the Sri Lankan state, internal security still entails protecting the
boundaries of the state against secessionist movementsthus avoiding
the dilution of state sovereignty and safeguarding it from external
intervention. The notion of territoriality, therefore, still predominates
in the state's perception of security. The concept of territory is crucial,
too, in the state's understanding of nationalism and the nation-state. A
nation-state is perceived as a spatial unit lying between borders that it
must defend. Territory, as Louis Dumont defines it, is a continuous
tract of country that symbolizes the unity of individuals who own
parts of the country. If the nation is "a collection of individuals and
their properties," territory is the total of the properties belonging to
that collection of individuals, known as the nation (Dumont 1970:
108). Writing about the Indo-Sri Lankan Accord of 1987, Jayadeva
Uyangoda points out that the primary aspect of the crisis was the
prospect of territorial breakup and the disintegration of the Sri Lankan
state. The theoretical possibility of a territorial split gained momentum
with the outbreak of violence in the north and east and with the Tamil
guerrilla campaigns (Uyangoda 1989).
A certain consensus seems to have emerged on the necessity of
military action against the LTTE. In the view of the UNP government
in the early 1990s, only a military takeover of the north and the east
could assure the security of the south. For the UNP, now in the
opposi-

 Page 376
tion, military action has been found to be the only option. While he
was prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe said, "In the absence of
any other option at the moment, security forces would continue their
efforts to bring more areas in the North under the government's
control."

7 The government of Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge

eventually adopted the military option because everything else had
failed. She initiated a peace process, but after about four months of
cease-fire the LTTE broke the truce by destroying two navy boats and
firing heat-seeking missiles at two aircraft. The LTTE has
subsequently tried to explain its breaking of the truce. It claims that
the stance of the government expressed in the president's letter to the
LTTE leader, Vellupillai Prabakharan, was that "enough concessions
and privileges had already been given to the Tamils and that further
giving of anything would endanger the national security."8 By April
1996 the government forces had recaptured the Jaffna peninsula,
pushed the Tigers into the jungles of the Wanni, and given protection
to its civilian population, which had been reduced to the status of
refugees in LTTE-controlled areas. There are signs that the state is
evolving a concept of security that combines security of the south
from terrorist attacks, security of the north from guerrilla/military
clashes, and protection of the sacrosanct boundaries of the nation-state
from secessionist tendencies.

The State and Violence: From Army to Security Forces

Anthony Giddens has defined the nation-state as "a set of institutional
forms of governance maintaining an administrative monopoly over a
territory with demarcated boundaries (borders), its rule being
sanctioned by law and direct control of the means of internal and
external violence" (Giddens 1985: 121). He points out that a feature of
the nation-state is its monopoly of the means of violence. Sri Lanka's
situation demonstrates that when other groups in societyarmed groups
or insurgent movementsthreaten that monopoly, the state is compelled
to strengthen the instruments of internal pacification by transforming
its army into a modern and technically advanced outfit that it calls its
"security forces." The army played a ceremonial role during the first
decades of independence and functioned in a limited capacity in
assisting the police force to maintain law and order. The term then in
vogue was "law and order," which paradoxically has a much more
authoritarian resonance than "security.'' It is as though, at some point,
a reversal of meanings took place. During the decades of relative "law
and order" (1947 to the early 1980s), the political culture of the state
and the armywhose officer corps was recruited from the upper classes
and trained at Sandhurstwas above all democratic. Since the end of the

 Page 377
1970s, when Tamil groups took arms against the state, the Sri Lankan
army has had to face real war for the first time.
The term security entered the vocabulary of the state at the end of this
era of innocenceas though the predictable excesses of the armed
forces would need to be semantically exorcised by use of the word
security, which connotes protection and comfort rather than violence.
Security and forces were thus coupled in an oxymoronic fashion. The
"internal security of the state" became a familiar phrase in the political
jargon of the 1980s, and the army was rebaptized as the "security
forces." It was a less confrontational way of making civil society
accept the realities of war and violence under the guise of a discourse
on "security."
The worsening of the ethnic conflict and the consequent expansion of
the armed forces in the 1980s contributed to the creation of a
"security"-oriented state. The process of militarization and the special
role assigned to the security forces resulted in several changes in the
structure of the state, which in the last decade, according to some
analysts, has begun to slide toward political authoritarianism
(Warnapala 1994). As Michel Foucault reminds us, "politics has been
conceived as a continuation, if not exactly and directly of war, at least
of the military model as a fundamental means of preventing civil
disorder." What he suggests in fact is that politics, as a technique of
internal peace and order, attempts to implement the mechanism of the
perfect army and to a certain extent succeeds in training people to be
disciplined and docile bodies (Rabinow 1984: 185). The militarization
of the state in the 1980s even influenced many Sri Lankans into
uncritical admiration for a ruler such as Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew. It
is not uncommon to hear people openly aver that what the country
needs is ten years of military rule, proper discipline, or a benevolent
dictatorship.
The late 1970s and 1980s were a period of torture and deaths in
The late 1970s and 1980s were a period of torture and deaths in
custody, extrajudicial killings, and reprisal massacres. Arbitrary
arrests and detention for long periods were common. Except for a
period of five months, Sri Lanka has been in a state of emergency
since 1983. In 1994, the new leftist government of Chandrika
Kumaratunge lifted the emergency decree in the south. In the north
and the east, the security forces are still invested with extraordinary
powers under the emergency regulations and the Prevention of
Terrorism Act (PTA).

9 Indeed, since the outbreak of civil war the security forces have been
invested by the state with a sort of semi-divine aura. Under the UNP
government it was considered a crime against the state to criticize the
security forces even if they had committed excesses. The UNP
Manifesto of the 1994 elections offered a eulogy of the armed forces:

 Page 378
Sri Lanka is proud of the heroism and dedication of its Security Forces.
Despite being involved in violent and painful conflict with terrorism, our
Security Forces have performed magnificently and with courage against
every threat. Whereas increasing militarization in many countries brings
about public hatred and contempt for their security forces, we have
widespread sympathy and affection for the men and women who serve
their motherland in our army, navy, airforce, and police.

10

The security forces were the protectors of "national security," modern-

day heroes who fought courageously for the good of the country, the
motherland. This feeling, encouraged by the state, seeped down to the
Singhalese people. Indeed, their widespread sympathy for the security
forces was obvious during the late 1980s when the leftist and
violence-prone JVP was gaining much ground among the poorer
classes. The JVP's crucial mistake was to threaten the families of the
security forces in its struggle against the state. That policy led to a
major reversal in sympathy that helped the government to crush the
JVP militarily. Initially the Chandrika government was ambivalent
about the security forces. Although it started a campaign to bring to
justice some of the military men involved in massacres, this effort has
recently slowed. With the recent capture of Jaffna city, despite the
obvious instances of violence, bribery, and corruption in the higher
command, the security forces are once again hailed as the saviors of
the nation.
Despite the changes in the state's conception of security, in the
mainstream view security means protection of the boundaries of the
sovereign state of Sri Lanka from encroachmentsfirst on the part of
India, then by unlawful sons of the soil. Very few studies offer an
epistemological reflection on security. Security itself is a given. The
core values to be protected are territorial integrity and political
independence. The only shift in emphasis in Sri Lanka has been that
national security in recent years has come to mean, more and more,
defending the sovereignty of the state against enemies from within.
Human Security: The Nongovernmental Approach
Among members of majority and minority communities alike there is
a sense that the state is incapable of ensuring their security. In the
minds of the Sinhalese people, terrorist acts of the LTTE constitute
the main threat to their own security and that of the country.11 The
fear is amplified by an impression of the state's helplessness. In
November 1995, for example, all schools were closed for two months
after the LTTE threatened to target schoolchildren. Eventually it was
the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, in the heart of the business district of
Colombo, that

 Page 379
was blown to pieces in January 1996 by a suicide bomber, causing
nearly 100 deaths and millions of rupees worth of damages.
For the minority community, the threat comes from the state
institutions. Tamil civilians are frequently detained indiscriminately
after guerrilla or terrorist attacks or during army operations.
"Security," according to a female Tamil undergraduate, "is when you
feel protected by the law. Security means protection of life. As a
Tamil in the present day, the biggest threat is the security
forceshaving to produce identification." Her words summarize the
perception of the members of the Tamil community who were
interviewed for this study. Unlike most Sinhalese, who when asked to
define security said it meant to live "without problems," Tamil men
and women had a very precise understanding of the concept. The
state's failure to protect all its citizens was highlighted. ''Being a
Tamil, my name, my birthplace, is a source of suspicion. I am not
accepted as a citizen of Sri Lanka. I don't have the same freedom as a
man from the majority community," complained a Tamil teacher.

12

Most people's conceptions of security share an important feature with

the state's conception: both give a primary rank to the notion of
territory. For the state, we noted that security is attached to the land
and protection of the land or nation-state. For most individuals, the
home constitutes the last bastion of security once the state fails its
citizens. The events that took place in 1983 in Sri Lanka put the entire
issue in perspective. After the deaths of thirteen soldiers in Jaffna, the
center of the separatist struggle, anti-Tamil riots broke out in
Colombo. The mob targeted all Tamils. In this situation the
recognized institutions of the statethe police and the armed forces
whose duty it was to help the victims and control the violencewere
seen as manifestly failing to do their duty, whereas the Christian
church offered help and sympathy. For the victims it was the informal
network of friends and neighbors and the Christian church
organizations that provided the means for reformulating their lives. It
is not surprising, then, that they should have felt betrayed by the state.
The circle of security, therefore, has become smaller. As Kamala, a
victim of the violence, recalls: "I could not stand outside exposed to
the violence. So I took my family and ran into the house. I suppose at
that moment instinct makes us run into the security of our home"
(Kanapatipillai 1990: 334). For many victims, not even the home was
secure.
Thus when the state breaks its contract to protect all its citizens,
people are left to create their own security. For many in Sri Lanka this
meant leaving the country altogether. Kamala's family felt that the
future of Sri Lanka had no place for them and decided to migrate to
New

 Page 380
Zealand: "If we have to live as minorities," she said, "we might as
well live in a place that promises security to the children"
(Kanapatipillai 1990: 334). Security means life.
Thus the individual's security is very much contingent on events. In
the space of a few hours the state had changed its role from purveyor
of security to prime threat and even oppressor. Another feature of
individual security is that it is precisely when their security is
threatened (by a bomb blast or riot) that people consciously reflect on
their security needs. In situations of violence, therefore, security is not
only contextual and malleable, it is also fundamentally reactive.
Moreover, the feeling of threat persists. Many victims of violence,
uprooted in different countries and more than ten years after the
events, still see crowds as hostile mobs. Former residents of Jaffna
now in London or Toronto, who for years lived in fear of aerial
bombing, still listen with apprehension to the sound of planes or
helicopters. As Valli Kanapatipillai puts it, "The violence did not just
'erupt' and then disappear. Perhaps the difference between the threats
from natural disasters, and violence coming from human agencies, is
that the latter is experienced as continuous violence. It is not
contained in time; like waves created by throwing a stone in the river,
it has repercussions which far exceed the moment of its occurrence"
(Kanapatipillai 1990: 343).
Security as a Human Value
In 1994, the United National Party lost the elections to the People's
Alliance, a conglomeration of left, left-of-center, and minority parties.
In contrast to previous governments for which security was mainly
envisioned as national security, the present government's definition
encompasses human values, too, at least at the declaratory level.
The Election Manifesto of the People's Alliance in the parliamentary
elections of 1994 contained in its very title a notion of security at
variance with the UNP approach: "For a secure prosperous society
variance with the UNP approach: "For a secure prosperous society
where human values reign, devoid of corruption and terror." In this
formulation, it is society and not the state that has to be secure.
Compared to the previous government, the emphasis had shifted from
the state and a dominant concern for national security to a focus on
civil society. In the manifesto, the three main aims of the People's
Alliance underlined a "liberal democratic" approach to rights and
suggested the vital national values that must be protected: freedom to
live in a humane society; a free and democratic society with law and
order; and rapid and sustainable economic development.

13 After the People's Alliance captured power and formed a

government, its leader, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumararunge, won
the presidential elections. Since then, the new government

 Page 381
has been eager to introduce liberal-democratic ideas into society
through constitutional means as well as through efforts to involve civil
society in governance.
Constitutional Responses
Sri Lanka's 1978 Constitution is in the process of being transformed
into a liberal-democratic constitution that protects the freedom of the
individual. Security is not, however, the main concern of the
constitution makers, who, like John Rawls, claim that freedom is the
highest good and that a rational social order dedicated to principles of
justice must strive to realize them (Rawls 1971). That men and
women can aspire to freedom only to the extent that their basic needs
are met is not sufficiently taken into consideration. Those basic needs
encompass the social goods that are essential to human
subsistencefood, clothing, housing, medical care, schooling. Basic
human needs imply the duty of government to satisfy the welfare
requirements, taking into account the constraints of limited resources
and the vagaries of natural disasters such as drought and floods.

14

The right to life, liberty, and security of person was expressly stated in
Chapter 6 of the 1972 Constitution, but there is no comparable
provision in the 1978 Constitution. In the current constitution the
various fundamental rights are not treated as absolute but are subject
to the limitations stated in Article 15. National security, racial and
religious harmony, parliamentary privilege, contempt of court,
defamation, public health, and morality are among the recognized
grounds for imposing restrictions on fundamental rights (Goonesekere
1988).
In the recently released draft constitution the Chandrika government
has rectified a number of deficiencies of the present constitution. The
right to life is an important departure from the 1978 Constitution.
Although security is conspicuously absent as a fundamental right, the
draft constitution, which strengthens democratic institutions and
provides an enhanced protection of fundamental rights and freedoms,
implicitly acknowledges the importance of security.15 Concurrent
with the constitutional measures have been attempts by the Chandrika
government to forge closer links with the dynamic nongovernmental
organization (NGO) sector as a way of filling gaps left by the state.
Nongovernmental Organizations and Security
There is evidence to suggest that the NGO sector has had an impact
on government thinking about security. Indeed, the last twenty years
have seen a rapid growth of indigenous NGOs in Sri Lanka.16 The
new

 Page 382
emphasis on the NGO sector can be placed in the intellectual
framework of wider changes in macroeconomic policy, privatization,
and the reduced role of the state in all aspects of the economy and
provision of services. In the political realm, too, organizations that
find inspiration in the values embedded in the Declaration of Human
Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
have emerged since the 1970s. Among the most active and influential
are the following: the International Center for Ethnic Studies, the
Institute of Policy Studies, the Social Scientists' Association, the
Movement for Inter-Racial Justice and Equality, the Center for
Society and Religion, and Colombo University's Center for Policy
Research and Analysis.
Until recently, governments have kept NGOs at a distance because
they tend to critique the human rights record of the state. The change
of government, however, saw a important change in the position of
NGOs vis-à-vis the state. This change is due to the president's
personal ties with intellectuals and human rights proponents, a bond
that stems from her own intellectual interests. Unlike her
predecessors, who were known for being anti-intellectual, Chandrika
has close links with the left-liberal intellectuals in Sri Lanka. Her
political philosophy has evolved from socialism and a dependency-
theory approach to world economics to a carefully modulated brand of
liberalism with a human face. In drafting her political program prior to
the elections of 1994, she relied on a think tank composed of
university lecturers, journalists, and human rights activists who, like
her, had started their journey in the left movement.

17 This group of advisers constitutes an important human rights lobby

within the government, and they have undoubtedly influenced the
government's approach to security.
The political package for devolution of powera plan that entails the
division of the country into seven regionswas drafted as a political
solution to the ethnic conflict by G. L. Peiris, former professor of law
and former vice chancellor of the University of Colombo, and Dr.
Neelan Tiruchelvam, the director of the International Center for
Ethnic Studies. Both men are committed to the values of human rights
and promote a human rights discourse that goes a considerable
distance beyond the liberal-freedom discourse that was in vogue in the
1980s. The president's close advisers speak a humanist language of
human rights, which acknowledges the basic need for security as well
as for freedom and which links the two basic value claims within
theories of social and international justice. In Sri Lanka, the
postliberal struggle for human rights is linked more and more with the
struggle for peace and economic-political development.
The NGOs' intervention in security matters invariably revolves

 Page 383
around the notion of peace in the country as a precondition to the
security of all its citizens. Middle-class elements such as the radical
intelligentsia who work in the NGO sector and the progressive human
rights community adhere to Western-style rationalist doctrines of
equality but also uphold the individual's right to liberty and life. They
see this as a necessary element of a peaceful society, a sama
samajaya. Thousands of peace and human rights activists,
representatives of more than 40 nonparty formations and NGOs,
staged a mass peace rally on December 9, 1994the eve of International
Human Rights Day. The procession was accompanied by street theater
artists who sang, danced, and portrayed the horrors of war and the
joys of peace. The crowds were kept absorbed by speeches on various
themes pertaining to peace, democracy, and human rights. The peace
rally ended with the lighting of torches and the formal adoption of two
appeals, one to the government and the other to the LTTE.

18

Today most NGOs concerned with human rights support the

devolution of power to regions suggested by the government as a
long-term solution to the ethnic conflict, while advising the
government to refrain from military action that could harm the civilian
population in Jaffna. But on other fronts, dissatisfaction is brewing.
Two years after the change of government there is a clear discrepancy
between, on the one hand, people's expectations for a state that will
protect them and, on the other, the liberal free-market approach
adopted by the new regime in its dealings with labor problems.
Critiques of the State's Approach
The state's approach to security is challenged on many fronts. It is
criticized specifically for its failure to include cultural and economic
elements in its conception of security. Those outside the government
are concerned with threats of a nonmilitary characterexternal
domination of the country's economy, dependence on other countries
for scientific research and technology, and the unrestricted penetration
of Western values through the media resulting in an erosion and
eventual loss of national identity. For a sizable group of people,
security cannot refer simply to the preservation of the state's
independence and territorial integrity.
Insurgent groups such as the JVP list a range of problems, including
the threat posed by capitalism to the culture and traditions of the
Sinhalese people and the government's submissive attitude to the
dictates of lending institutions. Other pressure groups such as trade
unions argue that the state has sold out to international capitalism and

 Page 384
failed to protect its children from want. Religious groupings such as
the powerful Buddhist Sangha criticize the state's approach for
subordinating culture and religion to economic and political concerns.
Do these voices influence the state's conception of security?
The Context: Liberalization and Privatization
In 1977 Sri Lanka opened up its economy after more than a decade of
import control. Chandrika came to power with a promise to the
financial world that her government would not reverse the
liberalization and privatization program of the previous government.
The People's Alliance's political program, however, was more
ambivalent about the privatization issue. Although it clearly accepted
the inevitability of a market economy, it stated that "public utilities
which are essential for day-to-day life must function under
government control, but with adequate autonomy for efficient
management."

19 Thus although the People's Alliance maintained its commitment to

the privatization program begun in the previous regime, its manifesto
emphasized a people-oriented approach to social and political
reforms. People, the manifesto argued, matter more than reasons of
state. In its election manifesto the government had stated that health,
education, water, electricity, highways and railway, airports,
irrigation, main state banks, and public-sector insurance
establishments must function under government control.20 But in
February 1996 it was revealed that the government was considering
the privatization of no fewer than 70 state institutions. Among the
enterprises earmarked for divestment of shares were the State
Mortgage and Investment Bank, the Independent Television Network,
the Ceylon Shipping Corporation, and Air Lanka.21 The government's
inability or refusal to keep its electoral promises has led to challenges
from labor and to a growing feeling that the government has duped its
supporters.

Security as Social Justice

Paradoxically, the JVP insurrection of 1987-89 started in the name of
national security defined in a manner very similar to the state's
conception. Its manifesto proposed that "a new foreign policy will be
adopted to ensure the national independence and territorial integrity of
Sri Lanka." The JVP's approach was in fact a combination of two
perceptions of security. On the one hand, it claimed to be the savior of
a nation that was then enduring external threats and internal conflict.
This vision of national security was in no way different from that of
the diplomats and mainstream academics. On the other hand, the JVP

 Page 385
articulated a conception of security whereby the state would protect
and look after the people.
In 1988, the JVP Action Center issued a communiqué calling the
masses to protest against the J. R. Jayawardena-Rajiv Gandhi accord,
which brought about provincial councils and devolution of power. The
rhetoric was one of justice and equality rather than rights: "We shall
not keep quiet when the patriots in the South who fight for equality
and justice are massacred by mercenaries. We shall not wait patiently
when the reasonable struggle by the studentsour future generationfor
justice and equality is repressed brutally" (Gunaratna 1990: 291). The
idea that basic needs are contained in the concept of security is
reflected in the notion of rights embodied in the JVP vision of a
sadharanaya lokaya ("equitable world") where the poor are not
discriminated against and social justice prevails. In 1987-89, a
primary component of its vision of social justice was the notion of
mass universal education as a basic human right. In the economic
field, foreign trade, internal wholesale trade, and heavy industry
would be maintained as state monopolies. Foreign banks and financial
institutions would be nationalized. A radical land reform would be
implemented. The ethnic problem would be dealt with by ensuring
that equality prevailed among all races in education and land
distribution.
The JVP took it upon itself to secure social justice among the
Sinhalese by taking up arms against what it saw as an oppressive
state. It argued that the Sri Lankan state since independence had been
committed to welfarismthat is, to safeguard the basic needs of its
citizens. After 1977, however, the economy was opened and industrial
growth based on foreign investment was encouraged. A necessary
concomitant to such an export-led strategy was the World Bank and
International Monetary Fund's "structural adjustment policies," which
demanded a shifting of public resources away from social welfare into
investment. The JVP opposed the system of private property on the
grounds that a society based on humanistic principles can never be
built on a capitalist framework. The socialization of property relations
was firmly defended. The JVP claimed that Sri Lanka had a
neocolonial economy completely subservient to the imperialists. In
this view capitalism, which has led to neocolonial domination and an
erosion of traditional mores and values, is the main enemy (Gunaratna
1990: 259-66). One of the primary global threats, according to the
radical nationalists, is the involvement of lending institutions such as
the World Bank and the IMF in running the country, especially in
light of their demands for "good governance" (Lipset 1960: 403).

 Page 386
Significance of the JVP Alternative
Until recently, governments have ignored these voices from below.
But after two insurrections and thousands of dead, the problems of the
poor unemployed youth of the south can no longer be ignored.
Although the JVP movement was violently crushed in the late 1980s,
its ideas remain popular in certain circles such as the student
movement and some trade unions. Militant Sinhala groups such as the
Jathika Chintanaya (National Ideology), student movements such as
the Janata Mithuro (Friends of the People), and trade unions have
offered their own definition of securitya definition that involves a
critique of the state in Sri Lanka as a component of global capitalism.
Many young men and women interviewed for this study expressed, if
not allegiance to the JVP, at least an intellectual affinity with its ideas.
A well-known social critic, Gunadasa Ameresekere, has put forward
the concept of jathika arthikaya, a national or indigenous economy.
His vision idealizes the village and rural culture and castigates the
open economy without clearly advocating an alternative model of
development. The Janata Mithuro envisages an environment-friendly
regime that would control the pernicious effects of
modernizationtourism, pollution, urbanization. These approaches
reflect the need for security from "imperialist/global threats" and the
turning inward turn to focus on indigenous culture rather than
international conceptions of human rights.
Clearly, then, the state's approach to security has not been influenced
by the JVP/antisystemic critique, which challenges the foundation of
society itself and the belief that Western-style economic and political
liberalism represents "the good society" (Lipset 1960: 403). No
government will agree to reverse the ongoing process of liberalization
in order to appease the JVP or its supporters. But under pressure from
these anti-capitalist forces, the state can be forced to change its policy
on certain issues. Thus one could say that the JVP/antisystemic
ideology, when used in a limited manner, may have some impactas in
the recent Ceylon Electricity Board strike. In that case the state had to
compromise in order to assure workers that privatization would not
take place at the expense of their interests. Here one can say that the
voice of antisystemic groups did have an impact on the state's
approach to security. Through strikes, pickets, and representations,
these groups act as watchdogs that now and then remind the
government of its commitment to human security.
The Sangha's Critique
According to Sinhala-Buddhist tradition, fashioned largely by the
Ancient Chronicles of the island, Sri Lanka is the Dharmadvipa
(island

 Page 387
of the faith) consecrated by the Buddha himself as the land in which
his teachings would flourish. One such Chronicle, Mahavamsa, states
that on the very day of the Buddha's death, Vijaya, the founder of the
Sinhala race, landed in Sri Lanka as if to bear witness to the Buddha's
prediction (Geiger 1950). The king was traditionally the protector of
Buddhism, and after independence the new nation-state took over this
function. Every constitution of the country since 1972 has stressed the
special place given to Buddhism, the religion of more than 70 percent
of the population. Buddhism is in Sri Lanka a legitimizing,
integrative, and moral force that governments and politicians must
take into account. Although Buddhism is protected by the state and
practiced by the vast majority of people, many of its proponents
present it as a religion under threat. The threat has been portrayed as
coming from various places at different times. In the 1950s, Buddhist
leaders complained of the influence of "Catholic action" and
spearheaded the SLFP campaign, taking over denominational schools,
evicting Catholic nursing nuns, giving Buddhist preachers more time
over national radio, and securing employment for Buddhists in the
higher echelons of the administration and armed services. This was in
fact a process of rectifying perceived colonial favoritism to Catholics.
Since independence, political monks organized in pressure groups
have taken positions on crucial issues, and they influence people by
virtue of their moral prestige. When the UNP came to power and
liberalized the economy, monks protested against the growing
consumerism. The same groups protested against the signing of the
Indo-Sri Lankan Accord in 1987, claiming that the agreement
betrayed the Sinhala people by conceding too much to the Tamils and
allowing Indians to enter the island as a peacekeeping force. The
rhetoric of betrayal, and of the need to protect the land, are ever-
present elements in the Sinhala nationalist discourse where Sinhalese
and Buddhist identities are merged into one. The threat is identified as
coming from the West, Christianity, and capitalism.
The phenomenon of religious influence was particularly apparent a
few years ago when a book published by Stanley Tambiah, Buddhism
Betrayed? Religion, Politics and Violence in Sri Lanka (1992),
became the center of a controversy. It was alleged in the Sinhala press
that with the publication of the book an international conspiracy had
been launched: the co-conspirators included the World Institute for
Development Economic Research (WIDER), its former director, and
the United Nations organizations; the chief beneficiary of the plot was
the LTTE. This controversy, and the response of the reading public in
Sri Lanka, showed that quite a few people believe that American
imperialism is

 Page 388
behind most of the evils of the world and that a number of traitors in
Sri Lanka have sold out to the West. A few months later the
government, bowing to the pressure of the Sangha, imposed a ban on
the import and sale of the book.
The Buddhist Sangha plays an important role in fostering such ideas,
because many Buddhists look to the leaders among the sects of
Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka as moral guides even on temporal
matters. The condemnation by many influential monks of the
devolution packagea proposal offered to the Tamil people by
Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge's governmentas a threat to the
unitary character of the state seems to have dampened the initial
enthusiasm of its promoters. On March 5, 1996, a vast gathering of
the Buddhist order, numbering more than 2,000 members, assembled
to denounce the government's proposals to defuse the ethnic problem.
A prominent scholar-monk, the Venerable Dr. Walpola Rahula, made
the following statement: "These devolution proposals could only
cause chaos and doom to the country and hence the package should be
rejected in toto."

22 When the Sangha believes the state is failing to protect the majority
culture, language, and religion of the land or is endangering the
sovereignty of the country, it voices its opinion in the media. The state
is then obliged to take the Sangha's view into account even if it does
not always reflect the view of the majority.

Lessons
The definitions of security in Sri Lanka surveyed in this chapter draw
attention to certain features of the concept: the plurality of
conceptions of security and the relativity of the core values that must
be protected as one moves from the state's perception of security to
the perceptions of others. Globalization is a security concern of
antisystemic groups as well as of influential segments of the
population such as the Sangha.
For the state, security means the protection of the boundaries of the
sovereign state of Sri Lanka from external and internal aggression.
Recently, the state's concept of security has been broadened to include
a concern for the human side of security by focusing on the people
who live within the boundaries of the state. The state's realist
approach to security is contested in the name of social justice by
groups such as the LTTE and the JVP. But the People's Alliance too is
challenged when it attempts to backtrack on its promises and
seemingly fails to protect the boundaries of the sovereign state. Thus
in both its incarnationsas human security and as state securitythe
definition of security is contested. It has many faces. This is perhaps
the most important conclusion one can draw about security in Sri
Lanka.

 Page 389
Sri Lanka's conception of security is due not only to its location or
weakness in power but also to the nature of the state, its ruling elites,
and the incidence of ethnic conflict. These factors explain the diverse
conceptions of security. The perception of a threat from the capitalist
West, for instance, stems from the deep wounds inflicted by
colonialisma feeling shared with all former colonies whether Asian or
African. In the same way the communal nature of people's conception
of security is shared in many other settings where majority and
minority peoples coexist in other parts of the world.
What about Sri Lanka today? After the LTTE broke the truce and
resumed fighting, the state once again outlined its conception of
security: protecting the sovereignty of the state (territory) in the north
and east and protecting the people in the south from terrorist acts by
using the services of the security forces. For the people of Jaffna,
however, security means security from the state bombing their homes.
For the Tamils in Colombo, some of whom are arbitrarily arrested in
anticipation of terrorist activities, there is no security from the
counterinsurgent state. For the Sinhalese patriots, who have begun to
accuse the state of weakness and of playing into the hands of the
LTTE and the foreign hegemonic forces that support it, the notion of
security is subsumed in a global critique of capitalism and a naive
antiforeign rhetoric. More than ever, security is a complex concept
with a multiplicity of faces.

 Page 390

CONTINENTAL SOUTHEAST ASIA

12
Myanmar
Preoccupation With Regime Survival, National Unity,
And Stability
Tin Maung Maung Than
Our Three Main National Causes: non-disintegration of the Union;
non-disintegration of national solidarity; perpetuation of sovereignty.
We reject any scheme to break up the Tatmadaw [Burmese armed forces].
No matter who tries to divide us, we will always remain united. Anyone
who tries to break up the Tatmadaw is our enemy.
GOVERNMENT SLOGAN

Myanmar's

1 conception of security is overwhelmingly domestic, focused

primarily on survival of the regime, national unity, and law and order.
The ''state" has been the primary referent of security since January
1948 when Myanmar, then known as Burma, gained independence
from Britain. But the state and regime have been fused since the
military coup of 1962. This has become even truer since the military
coup of 1988 that led to the creation of the State Law and Order
Restoration Council (SLORC)the military junta that now controls
Myanmar.2 The state has been the object of contestation by minority
groups since Myanmar gained independence. The regime also has
been contested periodically since 1962, and the contestation has
escalated since 1988. In its rhetoric, the government has hailed
sovereignty and territorial integrity as its primary security concerns.
The threats to these realist values, however, have been internal rather
than international. In fact, Myanmar's geopolitical horizon did not
extend beyond its immediate neighbors until the advent of the
SLORC.

 Page 391
Historical reasons account for the predominance of internal concerns
in Myanmar's conception of security. After gaining independence
from Britain in 1948, Myanmar had a succession of governments that
were opposed by a variety of local insurgent groups (Taylor 1987:
217). Moreover, bitter historical experience (Mongol and Chinese
invasions, rivalry with Thailand, and the British annexation) dating
back to the thirteenth century has impressed on Myanmar leaders the
imperative of safeguarding the territorial integrity and the sovereignty
of the state from external aggression.
Security Thinking: The Preserve of a Small Elite
All Myanmar governments have regarded security as the preserve of
state leaders. The "security elite" in Myanmar has usually consisted of
a very small inner core of top political and military leaders. In fact,
the discourse on security has been monopolized by the defense
establishment. Intellectual analysis, media coverage, and public
debate of security issues are virtually absent. All along, the polity has
accepted its own exclusion as well as the inexorable logic of state
security, which has subsumed societal interests. The gaps between
individual, group, and national security have never been
acknowledged by the state, and the public has generally acquiesced to
the state's hegemony in the name of order and stability.

3 Thus, the scope and structure of security in Myanmar from the

beginning of sovereign statehood to the 1990s have essentially been
determined by a small elite who, for all practical purposes, seem to be
insulated from societal influences.

After the military coup of 1962, state leadership took the form of a
"single apex structure" with General Ne Win at the apex (Kaung
1995). The "security consciousness" of leader Ne Win became that of
the state. For the SLORC, although there is no comparable single
leader, the structural configuration is not dissimilar. Despite a
generational change from a "founding father" type of leadership to a
"military-bureaucratic" type (Cohen 1989: 36-40), the existence of a
tightly knit decision-making system within SLORC gives the top
military leadership an opportunity to dominate the conception of state
security. As for the translation of the leadership's security concerns
into specific policies and their subsequent implementation, in the
absence of documentary evidence one has to look for clues in the
behavior of the central decision makers as well as in the institutional
structures that undergird state security.
Traditionally, there has been a compartmentalization of state security
agencies into those geared toward external defense and
counterinsurgency operations (the Ministry of Defense and its
operational units)

 Page 392
and those responsible for law enforcement (the Home Ministry and
the police force). Before the advent of the SLORC these agencies
were coordinated at the cabinet level, whereas intelligence
organizations were coordinated, since the mid-1970s, by the National
Intelligence Bureau (NIB) under the purview of the prime minister.
Under the SLORC, the formal organizational division has been
maintained, but the military, as the single dominating institution in
state affairs, has become an almost monolithic hierarchical structure
for dealing with national security affairs. The SLORC has an absolute
monopoly in defining the state security agenda and differs
dramatically from the previous trilateral power configuration in which
the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP), the state executive, and
the military shared lineage, power, and responsibilities (Than 1993:
39-42). The Security and Management Committee of SLORC is
presumably the focal point for dealing with security matters at the
state level. In the field of intelligence, the NIB is believed to have
been superseded by the Office of Strategic Studies headed by SLORC
secretary-1, Lieutenant General Khin Nyunt.
Although specific leaders and the organization of the security
infrastructure have changed over time, there is continuity in some of
the factors that influence the construction of Myanmar's security.
History, geography, geopolitics, and resource availability not only
provide continuity in security thinking but also impose constraints and
offer opportunities for Myanmar's security managers in their
management of national security.
History, Geography, Geopolitics, Society, and Resources
History is one important factor that shapes central decision makers'
conception of security. The historical developments that inform
Myanmar's security conception include the almost continual struggle
to establish an autonomous Bamar nation;
to establish an autonomous Bamar nation;

4 the incessant wars fought among the various "nations" of the proto-
Myanmar state and conflicts with neighboring states over eight
centuries of dynastic cycles; the ignominy of being colonized by the
British for over a century; the subsequent struggle for national self-
determination; the Japanese invasion during World War II; the "anti-
fascist revolution"; the intense efforts to achieve national unity in
confronting the British to regain political independence; the
postindependence civil war and subsequent ideological and ethnic
insurgencies; and the Kuomintang (KMT) aggression during the
height of the Cold War.

Geographically, Myanmar shares more than 6,100 kilometers of

 Page 393
contiguous land frontiers with five states and possesses a coastline
stretching more than 2,800 kilometers. Hemmed in between the two
most populous states on earth (nearly 1.3 billion Chinese and 950
million Indians), Myanmar's 45 million inhabitants (as of 1996) are
outnumbered by its other neighbors as well except for Laos. Myanmar
has prominent natural barriers in the form of "montane zones" in the
northwest, north, and east, and rivers in the west and southeast. But
those barriers did not prevent military invasions in the past (Lim
1984: 1-3, 59-65). For the last four decades, the frontier zones have
been, more often than not, contested areas where drug traffickers,
warlords, and insurgent groups have challenged the authority of the
central state.
Geopolitical ramifications for the modern Myanmar state have been
overwhelmingly determined by bilateral relations with China, which
date back to the early Pyu kingdoms of the ninth century (Han 1988:
1617; Working People's Daily [hereafter WPD], Dec. 11, 1992).

5 Postindependence Myanmar has, all along, accommodated China as

its "senior" in a paukphaw (sibling) relationship, taking great pains to
avoid incurring China's wrath (Han 1988: 16-18).6 During the Cold
War, Myanmar kept out of harm's way by eschewing military
alliances and pursuing a strictly neutral foreign policy.

Myanmar has remained a multicultural, multiethnic, and

multireligious society. Because of topography and differing political
economies and sociocultural practices, substantial assimilation of
other major indigenous groups such as Kachin, Chin, Kayin (Karen),
Mon, and Shan into a supraethnic Myanmar nationality has not
occurred. The existence of enclaves along ethnic lines and the colonial
ascriptive notion of lowlanders and highlanders persisted well into the
twentieth century (Taylor 1982). Growing urbanization and the
concerted drive for national unity by the vanguard leaders of the
independence movement somewhat attenuated the sense of alienation
and mistrust, and the communalist tendencies engendered by ethnic
divisions. However, the minorities' perception of majority dominance
(Bamars constitute about 68 percent of the total population) in ethnic
relations has been a most contentious political issue in independent
Myanmar with far-reaching security implications (Yaungwe 1987;
Silverstein 1980).7 The ethnic dimension is a critical factor in the
predominance of internal security issues in Myanmar.
In terms of physical resources, Myanmar has been more than self-
sufficient in food and is well endowed with water, land, forests,
minerals, and other resources commensurate with its population and
level of consumption. It seems that most Myanmars have subscribed
to the long-cherished but somewhat vague notion of an inexhaustible
natural

 Page 394
resource base with immense potential for wealth creation (Steinberg
1982: 14-15). As such, the apparent ability of Myanmar's natural
resources to provide physical sustenance for its population perhaps
has reinforced the country's affinity for a self-sufficiency doctrine
that, at times, has bordered on isolationism. Yet the economic
development of Myanmar during the four decades after independence,
in which the state played a dominant role, was poor, resulting in a
very low per capita gross national product of some U.S.$200 in 1986.
Even after SLORC opened up the economy its size was extremely
modest, though economic growth was quite rapid after 1990.

8 Thus, the government's ability to expend financial resources for

security was constrained by budget deficits and foreign exchange
shortages up to the early 1990s (International Monetary Fund 1988;
World Bank 1972).

Security Referents: State, Regime, and Military

The unitary Burmese state, usually referred to as the naing-ngan-daw
(literally, royal state) or Union, has been the primary referent for
"national" security since independence. The current state leadership
apparently sees no clear distinction between the state, regime, and the
incumbent government. This has led to a reification of the state and its
conflation with the regime as well as with the military, which claims
to be the guardian of the state.9
Because the country is governed by a military junta that exercises
absolute power under martial law, alternative conceptions of security
are rejected by the government and in fact are viewed as a threat.
There is virtually no space for public discourse on the referent of
security. Nevertheless, in addition to the armed minority groups,
several societal actors and expatriate groups are openly challenging
SLORC's right to govern as well as the very idea of a unitary state.
Lawfully constituted political parties and "accredited" national groups
tread carefully to avoid contravening existing laws and voice their
concerns in a muted manner within the bounds of the constitution-
drafting process initiated by SLORC in January 1993. Others have
either gone underground or taken up residence abroad to confront
SLORC. Those groups, which have been outlawed by SLORC,
include dissident students, lay activists, dissident monks, some
representatives who were elected in the May 1990 elections but not
allowed to take their seats, and expatriate activists. Twenty-two
groups formed an anti-SLORC united front called the Democratic
Alliance of Burma (DAB), and some dissident-elected representatives
formed a government-in-exile called the National Coalition
Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB). A shadow

 Page 395
parliament in the form of the National Council of the Union of Burma
(NCUB) also was established.

10 The common aim of these contenders to SLORC's legitimacy was

to install a democratically elected civilian government that would seek
a federal solution to satisfy the ethnic groups' demands for greater
autonomy.

The ethnic groups find SLORC's conception of state security a threat

to their individual well-being as well as to communal interests. There
have been allegations of cultural and communal destruction, religious
persecution, forced labor, porterage, forced relocation, wanton
destruction, discriminatory repression, and collateral damage as
manifestations of the state's attempt to enforce security at the expense
of nonstate actors and institutions (Rajah 1994: 6-8, 11-12).11
Moreover, ethnic dissidents identify the military leadership with the
majority Bamar, and this, in turn, raises suspicions that a hidden
agenda for perpetuating ethnic hegemony is part of SLORC's
conception of security wherein the state, the regime, and the military
are practically interchangeable (Yaungwe 1990).
SLORC is, nevertheless, determined to press home its interpretation
of state security, rejecting the alternative vision of its detractors as not
only inimical to its own existence but also detrimental to the
perpetuation of Myanmar as a sovereign state. SLORC envisages a
"strong" state in which "unity, economic and military strength" are
essential elements (New Light of Myanmar [hereafter, NLM], Apr. 10,
1995). To that end, SLORC's vision of a unitary state is
nonnegotiable. The identities of the state, the regime, and the military
all seem to have been amalgamated to form a seamless web in which
the security interests of one institution cannot be considered apart
from those of another.
Security Goals and Perceived Threats
SLORC has enunciated its national objectives in terms of upholding
the "Three Main National Causes": nondisintegration of the union,
nondisintegration of national solidarity, and perpetuation of
sovereignty. According to SLORC these causes are inseparable.
For perpetuation of the Union [the first aim], unity among our national
brethren is essential....
The second aim....National solidarity is essential for nondisintegration of
the Union....
Perpetuation of sovereignty, the third aim, is also based on
nondisintegration of the Union and nondisintegration of national solidarity.
If there is no national unity, the Union will disintegrate and if the Union
disintegrates, independence will be lost. These aims are correlated and
cannot be separated.12

 Page 396
The state's security goals may be identified as an interdependent dyad
comprising national unity and state sovereignty. Threats to those goals
are deemed to issue from within the state as well as from international
sources. Actually, the internal and external dimensions are seen as
interrelated, and the principal international security concern is not
interstate conflict but external interference in domestic contestation or
conflict. The specter that haunts Myanmar's current security elites is
"the dangerous mixture of domestic vulnerability and external
meddling" (Cohen 1989: 31).
Strict adherence to very narrow notions of sovereignty and
independence are sometimes relaxed and trade-offs accepted in the
economic dimension. Because the long-standing (1962-88) near-
autarkic, inwardlooking economic policy was found wanting, SLORC
abandoned it in favor of a more open policy soon after coming to
power. SLORC has been willing to relax Myanmar's long-cherished
notion of territorial sanctity, allowing border trading and tolerating a
daily influx of foreigners across the borders with Yunnan and
Thailand. It also has given logging and fishing concessions to foreign
companies and allowed foreign direct investment to the extent of 100
percent foreign ownership. The agreement signed with Thailand and a
multinational consortium in September 1994 for the development of
Myanmar's offshore natural gas field and the export of the gas through
a pipeline across the border, and the agreement with a Singapore-
People's Republic of China consortium to develop a vital port facility
near Yangon on an unprecedented BOT (build, operate, transfer)
basis, are examples of SLORC's willingness to allow economics to
override Myanmar's time-honored practice of conserving its natural
resources for own use and maintaining national control of strategic
facilities (Bangkok Post, Sept. 10, 1994; Business Times [Singapore],
June 29, 1995). All these steps arise mainly from the need for
economic growth to underpin state and regime security. Yet as it
opens the state's borders to multinationals, foreign businessmen, and
tourists, SLORC seeks to set the rules of the game and reserves the
right to change them as it sees fit in the interests of the state in general
and its own security in particular.

13

Domestic Threats
Domestic threats usually are seen by state leaders as closely related to
the problem of national unity, whose root causes are attributed to
colonial machinations. To understand this perception one must look at
Myanmar's historical experience before independence. The separation
of "Burma proper" from frontier areas (designated as "Scheduled
Areas," populated by non-Bamar ethnic groups) in the administration
of the

 Page 397
British colonial state had far-reaching implications for the subsequent
creation of an independent Myanmar state. Tantamount to an
institutionalized political and sociocultural divide, the separation
became a bone of contention for Myanmar nationalists (the majority
being Bamar), who accused the British of pursuing a divide-and-rule
policy.

14 To the advocates of a unitary state, it seems to have denied the

opportunity for the indigenous nationalities of Myanmar to develop a
sense of belonging and bonding that would culminate in an "imagined
community" of sorts able to forge a modern nation-state out of
disparate ethnic "nations" (Anderson 1991).

World War II also highlighted the problem of ethnic tensions between

Bamars and indigenous minorities: some minorities loyal to the
British crown found themselves at odds with Bamar nationalists who
were allies of the Japanese. Heavy-handed behavior by inexperienced
nationalist commanders added insult to injury and fostered resentment
among communities such as the Kayins of lower Myanmar (Cady
1965: 443-44). Such experiences under Japanese occupation "revived
and intensified" the minorities' ancient antagonisms against Bamars
for their perceived hegemony. Moreover, such antipathy was
"encouraged by the Allies" as part of the war effort (Selth 1986:
495).15 The antifascist resistance movement also had differential
impacts on different ethnic communities, and the differences led to
problems in majority-minority relations (Taylor 1982: 14; Selth 1986:
505). A substantial number of ethnic irregulars were recruited by the
retreating British, and these Kachin, Kayin, and Chin levies continued
their clandestine resistance in the border regions and in their
communal base areas. Apparently, "the British government, or at least
some of its representatives, were prepared to use [them]...even to the
point of deliberately misleading them as to their rewards after the
fighting was over" (Selth 1986: 502). As such, a sense of "betrayal"
by the British authorities who allowed the postwar decolonization
process to be controlled by the Bamar-dominated AntiFascist People's
Freedom League (AFPFL) was engendered among these "loyal''
subjects of the crownespecially the Kayinsthereby aggravating the
national unity problem of independent Myanmar (Brown 1994: 59-
63).
The solidarity among the national races achieved on the eve of
independence was mainly attributed to the stature and charisma of
Aung San and did not last very long after his assassination in July
1947. Myanmar's inability to attain the elusive goal of national unity
during the first four decades of independence was exemplified by the
incessant armed conflict between the central government and a variety
of insurgent groups fighting for separation, for autonomy, or to
establish a communist state. These insurgencies intensified after the
1962 coup.

 Page 398
Such was the structure of disunity and conflict among the national
races that SLORC inherited. Following the 1988 upheaval, it also
encountered opposition in the central heartland of Myanmar. Thus,
SLORC is challenged on two fronts: the political and social threats in
the center and the military insurgency threat on the periphery.
Political Threats
On the political front, the legitimacy of SLORC is being contested,
and there also is opposition to the direction and pace of the political
change sought by SLORC. Though dismissed as an aberration
exploited by communists, power-crazy political aspirants,
neocolonialist stooges, anarchists, and criminal elements, the upheaval
witnessed in Myanmar during August and September 1988 apparently
left an indelible imprint on the military leaders' perceptions of state
and regime security and on the nature of state-society relations.

16

Referred to as the "disturbance" or "affair" by state authorities and the

"democratic revolution'' by opposition groups, the turbulent episode of
1988 exposed previously unrecognized vulnerabilities of the
incumbent regime and, by extension, the state, which found itself
confronted by the previously latent oppositionthat is, the very subjects
who were supposed to be beholden to the state for their own security
(Lintner 1990a). Moreover, the upheaval spawned a horde of dissident
activists (mainly urban youth) who reacted forcefully to the state's
attempt to instill order and compliance during and after the upheaval.
Many of these activists are determined to carry on the struggle against
SLORC by whatever means available. Most significant, it led to the
emergence of Aung San Suu Kyi as an immensely popular champion
of liberal democracy and human rights as well as the preeminent
leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD), the most
popular of the political parties formed after the 1988 upheaval. Suu
Kyi is the charismatic daughter of Aung San, founding father of the
armed forces and the widely acclaimed savior of modern Myanmar.
As it confronted the polity, the military found itself in a situation akin
to "protracted social conflict"; its corporate solidarity was threatened
and the long-nurtured image of the patriotic "peoples' armed forces"
had been tarnished (Rajah 1994: 3-8). As such, the military's
"legitimacy as a social institution," which in the past had been
"maintained through an emotionally determined public loyalty,"
seems to have suffered, thereby heightening the military's sense of
vulnerability (Harries-Jenkins and van Doorn 1976: 4).
The political opposition, encouraged by the defection of some military
personnel at the height of the 1988 upheaval, later made overtures to
sway the military rank and file in their favor. At the same time they

 Page 399
dropped hints about possible retribution against the top leaders, which
raised the possibility of a divided military that could lead to civil war.
These overtures were accompanied by many attempts to defy and
obstruct the military's activities.

17 Given the historical experience of military units joining the

communist rebellion as well as the mutiny by Kayin troops during the
Kayin separatist insurrection, the fear of divided loyalties leading to
the dismemberment of the military still remains extremely credible to
SLORC. Thus, for the military leadership the quest for national unity
begins in the barracks, and the maintenance of cohesion and solidarity
within the Tatmadaw is the paramountperhaps the overridingsecurity
concern. In all probability, this is the perspective from which SLORC
views and assesses all domestic threats.

After some 26 years of depoliticization of Myanmar society, the

political awakening triggered by the 1988 upheaval liberated vast
pent-up emotions and energy sympathetic to the regime's opponents,
who used democracy as a catch-all term to challenge SLORC's
legitimacy.18 Consequently, the mobilization of the polity by the
politicians and the tremendous surge of political activity following the
relative widening of the political space were accompanied by sharp
criticisms of the military's conduct in the 1988 upheaval and of its
subsequent role in administering the state. Meanwhile, the Western
press, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), expatriate dissident
groups, and even governments continually condemned and criticized
the military over a wide spectrum of issues ranging from logging to
human rights, while praising and lionizing the opposing dissidents.
Moreover, international interest in the ethnic insurgencies was
rekindled by widespread media coverage, which shifted from urban
Myanmar to the border enclaves of the armed opposition groups in the
aftermath of the 1988 upheaval. The military suddenly found itself in
an unaccustomed role, as insurgent groups were depicted as freedom
fighters and allies of democracy. Consequently, the security discourse
of the central decision makers took on a new theme: legitimate the
central role of the military in politics and governance to safeguard the
state. Typically, the refrain has gone like this:
The Tatmadaw [armed forces], since 1988 has been giving priority to
implementing the tasks...to bring peace and tranquillity and to ensure rule
of law in the country and [political] stability....Our Tatmadaw has laid
stress on national reconciliation for restoring perpetual peace....A duty to
build our nation anew for its advancement and prosperity devolves on us.
So, in essence the Tatmadaw should be able to participate...in the national
political leadership role of the future Myanmar.19

 Page 400
Social Threats
A particular threat, identified by successive Myanmar governments
since the early 1970s, is the drug problem. The BSPP government
declared that the proliferation of narcotic drugs (especially heroin)
was a national scourge and took measures to mobilize the entire
population in the fight against trafficking and use. Drugs have been
regarded as a threat to national security because of their dissipative
impact on the nation's human resources. The narcotics problem,
especially in the form of the armed drug-trafficking groups, is both a
social threat and a major source of instability in the border regions.
Many of the regime's detractors have accused the military of colluding
with the ex-insurgent groups, which had peace pacts with the
government, in sustaining the drug trade. All this being said, the
narcotics problem in all likelihood remains high on the lists of threats
confronting the Myanmar state.

20

There is also the problem of illegal immigration. Despite Myanmar's

strict immigration laws, migrants from China (Yunnan) and
Bangladesh (previously East Pakistan) have continued to stream into
the country over the last four decades. Stemming mainly from
population pressures and the pull of family ties, as well as perceived
economic benefits, this phenomenon has been viewed by successive
governments as an internal security and law enforcement problem.
During the Cold War and at the height of the communist and Muslim
separatist insurgencies, it also was seen as an aspect of the military
security problem, in that the migrants could have been prone to
irredentist tendencies or could have become a fifth column for their
homeland. Since the late 1970s, however, illegal migration has been
looked upon more as a social and religiocultural threat against
national identity. In the 1990s there have been growing concerns
about migration from Yunnan; especially in light of the perceived
economic clout of the migrant Chinese (Maung 1994). Conscious of
the negative socioeconomic impact of migration from India during the
colonial period, Myanmar's present leaders are beginning to take the
threat seriously.21
Military Insurgency Threats
As noted earlier, the paramount security concern in the first decade of
independence was national survival in the face of multiple
insurgencies (Government of Burma 1949a, 1949b, 1952; Nu 1958).
The military government that came to power through the March 1962
coup claimed that it had to intervene and take political power to
prevent the dismemberment of the state by ethnic minorities who were
taking advantage of the disunity among the ruling political elites
(Than 1989: 41). The

 Page 401
insurgency threat was viewed as the principal security problem, and
its complete annihilation by military means was the goal (BSPP 1985:
2930). The military threat posed by the insurgencies escalated in the
aftermath of the 1988 upheaval as a consequence of the alliance
between student groups and ethnic insurgents as well as the material
and moral support garnered by the Democratic Alliance of Burma.
But over the years this threat has declined greatly.
The militarily most powerful communist insurgency ceased to be a
threat to the government after the ethnic rank and file revolted against
the aging leadership in April 1989 and sought a truce with SLORC.
The top leadership escaped to China, where they were given refuge on
humanitarian grounds (Lintner 1990b: 44-46, 51-54). The
dismembered armed units of the Burma Communist Party (BCP),
however, still have not been demobilized; they have been maintained
as local militia who could some day resort to armed struggle if their
demands for local autonomy are not satisfied. In fact, this is true of
many armed ethnic groups who have entered into cease-fire
arrangements with SLORC (Kyi 1994:227-28).
As a result of opening up the economy and the greatly improved
relations between the Myanmar and Thai militaries, the Thais appear
to have discarded their previous policy of regarding the ethnic groups
along the border as a security buffer. The lack of Thai support has
severely constrained communications and logistics for those groups.
There also has been a change in SLORC's conflict management
strategy, which now allows a two-pronged approach of exerting
military pressure while offering peace negotiations. Consequently,
beginning with the erstwhile communists, sixteen armed
groupsincluding the Kachin, who were the most potent military
adversary, the tenacious Mon, whose territory covered important
trading routes in southern Myanmar, and the Mong-Tai Army (MTA),
which under the drug lord Khun Sa reputedly controlled much of the
opium and heroin output of the infamous Golden Triangle (Myanmar-
opium and heroin output of the infamous Golden Triangle (Myanmar-
Thailand-Laos)have accepted the government's peace offer extended
on a bilateral basis.

22 The armed student groups formed from the scattered remnants of

the 1988 uprising also are affected by factional struggle and by
attrition due to disease and to repatriation and refugee settlement
programs. These factors have reduced the number of insurgent groups
by some 60 percent and their combined armed strength by more than
80 percent.23

The oldest ethnic insurgency, waged by the powerful Kayin minority,

which attracted the most media attention as the military backbone of
the DAB, NCUB, and the NCGUB, has all but disintegrated since its
central headquarters at Manerplaw fell to a rebel faction in early 1995.

 Page 402
This was a double blow for anti-SLORC forces, because the
symbolically important headquarters of the DAB, NCUB, and
NCGUB was no more. The subsequent political humiliation of losing
the liberated zone and the seat of the provisional government turned
out to be a death knell for the grand alliance of democratic activists
and ethnic dissidents. The internal revolt by Buddhist Kayins against a
mainly Christian Kayin leadership was brought about by a confluence
of war fatigue, the religious insensitivity of the inept leadership, and
the government peace overture. That conflict effectively neutralized
the Kayin "revolution." The losing faction, having lost perhaps three-
quarters of its armed strength and now denied its territorial reach,
vowed to carry on the fight through guerrilla tactics, but its heyday as
a quasi-provisional government controlling territorial enclaves in the
regions bordering Thailand is over.
There are a smattering of other marginal insurgents representing
dissident Muslims and the Rakhine, Wa, Dawei, Chin, and Naga
groups. They have very little political clout and are capable of only
small-scale guerrilla action, harassment, and sabotage.
External Threats
In the 1990s Myanmar does not have to face any adversarial state or a
militarily hostile external environment. It does not have any serious
dispute with its neighbors, nor is it involved in any regional
disagreements. Myanmar has, since the early 1950s, astutely used its
neutral foreign policy and friendly relations with virtually all states in
the international system to avoid involvement in the Cold War or in
regional rivalries (Han 1988: 18-20; Taylor 1983: 102-4).
Nevertheless, Myanmar leaders always have been mindful that
contiguous land borders with Bangladesh, India, China, Thailand, and
Laos are potential sources of conflict and contention. Given the
current level of amity between Myanmar and China, the latter is seen
more as a powerful ally than a threat per se, though the sheer size of
such a powerful neighbor, which is rapidly developing into an
economic giant, must be rather disconcerting for Myanmar's leaders.
The economic ties between China and Myanmar are still developing at
a fast pace, and the interests of the two states are likely to overlap
considerably in the foreseeable future. The high point of China-
Myanmar ties was symbolized by the visit of Chinese premier Li Peng
to Yangon in December 1994, which was reciprocated by Senior
General Than Shwe, the SLORC chairman, in January 1996.
Although there have been regional concerns over speculations of
closer strategic ties between the two countries, there is no hard
evidence to suggest that any such relationship has developed
(Richardson 1995).

 Page 403
Relations with India, which had been rather cool because of its offer
of refuge to anti-SLORC dissidents and its pro-opposition stance,
have improved considerably since 1992 when New Delhi decided to
accommodate the military government. Since the opening of the
border trade, the reestablishment of air links between the two
countries, and the reported cooperative interdiction of Mizo insurgents
by the two armies, there seems to be no basis for viewing India as a
threat despite India's concern that Myanmar might become a client
state of China (Straits Times, June 5, 1995; Selth 1995). Nevertheless,
Sino-Indian rivalry could become a security issue for Myanmar in the
years to come (Malik 1994).
Similarly, after having amicably settled the Rohingya refugee problem
of 1991 with Bangladesh, Myanmar apparently has no reason to view
its weak western neighbor as a serious threat.

24 The subnational threat of illegal migration remains a problem, but

it could be seen as a domestic issue rather than an external security
one.

Laos was the first country whose head of government visited

Myanmar after SLORC assumed power. It always has been a benign
neighbor, and the landlocked state is seen more as a friendly partner in
curbing the Golden Triangle narcotics trade and developing the
Mekong River Basin than as a viable threat (NLM, Feb. 10, 1994).
Thailand is probably the most problematic among Myanmar's
neighbors in security terms. Historically, Myanmar and Thailand have
been rivals. And Thailand's long-standing practice of utilizing "buffer
zones" occupied by anti-Yangon rebels as part of its border security
policy has been a source of irritation for Myanmar (see Lintner 1995a:
46-49). But after Thailand initiated the "constructive engagement"
policy toward Myanmar in the wake of the latter's more open
economic policy, bilateral relations improved rapidly. The military
establishments in both countries have repeatedly emphasized the
fraternal relationship between them.25 The visit of the Thai prime
minister Banharn Silpaarcha to Myanmar in March 1996 heralded the
renewal of close ties between the two countries; those ties had been
under threat for some time from tensions brought about by disputes
and disagreements over border security, the territorial boundary, and
resource extractions. Such tensions reached a climax in May 1995
when speculation about possible armed confrontation between the two
sides appeared in the Thai press, but they were later defused through
bilateral military interactions.26
Despite some hiccups, Thailand has become a major investor in
Myanmarthe third biggest, in fact, behind Singapore and Britain as of
the end of October 1996. The Thai business lobby is a powerful
advocate of improving bilateral relations. Nonetheless, recurring
problems associated with illegal logging, black-market trade, fish
poaching, and

 Page 404
contentious territorial claims will continue to have serious security
implications.
As of now, Myanmar does not perceive external threats in the form of
hostile states bent on conflict and conquest. Yangon's primary concern
is with external actors who seek to intervene in the internal affairs of
the state to influence the way in which Yangon deals with its domestic
problems.

27 Two examples of external threats perceived by Myanmar are

international support for anti-SLORC opposition in general and for
Aung San Suu Kyi in particular, and the Western imposition of
universal norms for human rights and democracy, environmental
protection, and utilization of labor.28 Myanmar leaders see the
clamoring for the release of "political prisoners" and for "dialogue"
with Aung San Suu Kyi, as well as calls for handing power over to the
elected representatives who won the 1990 elections, as attempts by
Western governments, legislators, lobbying groups, and NGOs to
destabilize the state and undermine governmental authority.
Condemnations of military porterage, "voluntary labor" for public
works, relocation of urban dwellers, exploitation of natural resources,
and the constitution-drafting process also are perceived as attacks on
the government's "laudable" social, economic, and political
development policies (Lintner 1991; Amnesty International 1992;
Weller 1993: 263-442).

Such attempts by external actors to influence SLORC's behavior are

regarded as unwarranted interferences that aggravate the problem of
domestic threats by imparting external pressure against the government
and simultaneously giving sustenance to the regime's opponents. Thus, the
military leadership's refrain has been that the former colonial powers
sought to maintain some sort of hold in one way or the other....There are
still signs of trying to maintain their influence through machinations which
 are quite transparent....
With all these threats...leaders here and in all the former colonies have to
be on the lookout for any act of encroachment on sovereignty or threat to
national security. ("Perspectives," NLM, Jan. 23, 1995)29

Approaches to Security
The current leadership seems to be driven by nationalism and notions
of self-reliance, as well as by a distrust of aliens and of the West in
particular. Myanmar's approach to security concerns, focused
overwhelmingly at the national level, embodies both competitive and
cooperative strategies. At the domestic level, SLORC's strategy
employs massive force in conjunction with some forms of dialogue
and accommodation to handle the insurgency threat. In its efforts to
neutralize political

 Page 405
threats to the regime, SLORC seems to be banking on rapid economic
development, coercion, and firm military control over the political
process. At the international level, the traditional strategies of
bilateralism and nonalignment are now supplemented by regional
cooperation through the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN). But the realist approach to security through military
strength has not been neglected, although the current expansion of the
military has to do more with domestic political control and military
corporate solidarity than with external defense. The leitmotif of
Myanmar's approaches to resolving or alleviating problems of state
security seems to be an emphasis on self-reliance stemming from both
necessity (in the light of a Western-inspired moratorium on official
aid and trade) and choice.
Managing Political Challenges to the Regime
As a result of the military's praetorian tendency, reinforced by its
politicized roots in a national liberation movement, the military has
assumed a dual role in both civil and military affairs. In short, the
military culture is now the dominant political culture in Myanmar.
The current crop of military leaders is not prepared to leave the fate of
the future Myanmar state in the hands of political parties and is
pushing for the adoption of a constitution that allows the emergence
of a strong state led by an autonomous military. Completely free from
civilian political control, the military is assuming a symbiotic
relationship with the state, a relationship it seeks to institutionalize
under the new constitution. That would exclude political parties from
a role in defining the national interest and setting the policy agenda.
This purpose is evident in the Armed Forces Day address given by
Senior General Than Shwe on March 27, 1995, in which he stated. "In
accord with the emerging Constitution, the duty to build our nation
anew for its advancement and prosperity devolves on us. So, in
essence, Tatmadaw should be able to participate, with genuine
goodwill, in the national political leadership role of the future
Myanmar" (NLM, Mar. 28, 1995).
To that end, the military has steered the national convention entrusted
with the task of drafting a new constitution toward entrenching the
dominant political role of the military in that document.

30 Among the 104 "fundamental principles" underlying the

prospective constitution, there are provisions to reserve one-quarter of
all seats in the legislature for military representatives nominated by
the armed forces commander in chief. Furthermore, the military will
enjoy complete autonomy with its commander in chief designated as
the supreme commander. Ministerial portfolios in the central
government for defense, security / home affairs, and border areas are
reserved for military

 Page 406
personnel nominated by the commander in chief, who will also
nominate the deputy ministers. Furthermore, coordination with the
commander in chief is required to appoint military personnel to any
other ministerial or deputy ministerial post. The assignment of
military personnel to leading governing bodies of self-administered
areas is also the commander in chief's prerogative. Moreover, there
will be a provision for the supreme commander to assume state power
in a national emergency.
Another guiding principle for the drafting of the new constitution
states that the executive president must be elected by an electoral
college and should be "well acquainted with the affairs of State such
as political administrative, economics and military affairs." Given this
requirement, it is extremely likely that the future president will be
recruited from those with a military background. Between them, the
president and the commander in chief of the armed forces will wield
considerable executive authority according to these guiding principles.
In this configuration, which effectively insulates state power from
political competition and representation, the military will retain its
control over national security policies and practices as well as those
concerning all important national issues.
In the process of managing the political transition from the previous
one-party socialist system to a military-controlled, multiparty electoral
system, Myanmar's leaders are prepared to use force and the full
coercive power of the state against those who challenge SLORC's
authority and legitimacy. Thus, SLORC deals with those who defy
existing laws or contravene martial law provisions mainly by
sentencing them to long prison terms or taking them into protective
custody under the Law Protecting the State from Dangers of
Disruptive Elements. For example, opposition leader Aung San Suu
Kyi was placed under house arrest on July 20, 1989, for "repeated
infringements of the [above] law; especially activities which threaten
the safety of the state" and for attempting "to sow discord between the
the safety of the state" and for attempting "to sow discord between the
people and the Tatmadaw" (SLORC Information Committee 1990: 5).

31

As spelled out by Senior General Than Shwe, SLORC justifies its

uncompromising stance by positing that
this transitional period is fraught with danger. You will have seen the
disintegration of some countries in the period of transition from the old
system to the new. There are instances where even some big nations ran
into difficulties for having used carbon copies of democracy and human
rights. In this connection, what we have accepted is that the most basic
human right is right to food, clothing and shelter. (NLM, Apr. 8, 1995)

 Page 407
To institutionalize its grip on society, SLORC established in
September 1993 the Union Solidarity and Development Association
(USDA). The aims of USDA are to promote and vitalize national
pride and the "emergence of a prosperous, peaceful and modern
Union" (NLM, Aug. 2, 1994). Though registered as a private social
organization, USDA is regarded by the regime's critics as an
institutionalized patronage system to support the current regime
(Diller 1996: 18-19). Others point out that it resembles Indonesia's
Golkar and that it is meant to sustain military's political influence
(Steinberg 1996: 14; Sundhaussen 1995: 777).
In response to the onslaught of Western media, SLORC set up an
information committee that held more than 100 news conferences
between September 1988 and July 1990. Entry visas for foreign
reporters, academics, and even some criticsexcept those who were
blacklistedwere issued, in contrast to an almost total ban on foreign
reporters and analysts during the socialist era. SLORC also set up a
committee to produce Myanmar's postindependence history, and
another series on the history of the armed forces is being published.
The government's information agencies produce an astonishingly high
number of books, magazines, articles, news bulletins, and audio-visual
materials in an apparent attempt to counter the negative portrayal by
the dissident groups and the regime's detractors.

32 Apart from state control of radio, television, and newspapers,

extensive control of private printing and audio-video output is
enforced through elaborate rules and regulations on registration,
monitoring, and censorship (Allot 1993).

In the past, the governing elites of Myanmar employed reproduction

of the traditional concepts of power, authority, culture, and religion
for the purpose of nation-building and the legitimation of their
regimes (Myint 1994; Steinberg 1992: 223, 228-29; Wiant 1981: 60-
66). Since the nation gained independence, successive regimes have
constructed a Myanmar national identity, based on Bamar values, for
the multiethnic and multireligious indigenous communities. Those
constructions have tended to appeal to the spirit of cooperation and
racial harmony reputedly achieved during the national liberation
struggle, which culminated in the 1949 Panlong Agreement wherein
some non-Bamar ethnic groups decided to throw their lot in with the
Bamar in a united effort to gain independence and statehood.
The military tradition of the monarchic period recently has become
the focus of much attention as an exemplar for a strong national
identity. Portrayed as the legacy of Myanmar's liberation movement,
the military has long been portrayed as a model for national unity and
hailed as the embodiment of the patriotic and altruistic spirit of a "true
Myanmar." In

 Page 408
this vein, the glorious legends of Myanmar warrior kings and military
heroes of the past have been revived in all forms of mass media and
joined with the exploits of the national liberation struggle, together
with the more recent ''victories" of the armed forces against the
enemies of the state. Although war and conflict per se have never
been glorified and militarism as such has not been advocated, the
military profession in the context of the noble duty of safeguarding
the state and protecting its citizens has been much acclaimed (Wiant
1981: 67; Sarpay 1992; Media Group 1994).
Nationalism and self-reliance, recurring themes since independence,
are being reiterated with the slogan "Our strength lies within our
country." Resistance to the encroachment of alien ways and values is
advocated, and depictions of the negative aspects of "decadent"
Western societies are presented through the state-controlled media,
apparently to rally the public around the military's endeavor to
develop national values, indigenous literature and culture, and a
Buddhist ethos. The Buddhist polity is presented with the military
leadership's pious promotion of the sangha (order of monks and
novices) and sasana (the legacy of Buddha by word and deed).

33

In its attempt to instill patriotism, unity, and self-reliance in the polity,

the leadership's constant refrain has been:
The Union of Myanmar had stood tall among the nations of the world as a
sovereign and independent nation with its own monarchy and leaders for
thousands of years.... At present neo-colonialists are waiting for an
opportunity to influence Myanmar again and interfere in its internal
affairs....[They] are trying to harm unity of national races and cause
disintegration of the Union with the use of traitors in the country through
crooked means....It is of utmost importance to vitalize patriotism and
 nationalist fervour....It is necessary to cleanse ourselves of inclinations to
think highly of foreign nations, to imitate foreign cultures and to be
swayed by external instigations and internal persuasions.34

All in all, the military portrays itself "not simply as a defender but as
the core of [Myanmar] society" (Steinberg 1993: 163). This
propagation of the military ethos and the reproduction of traditions, in
the name of unity, harmony, and cultural integrity, provides a
rationale for the military to play a leading role in the political and
sociocultural life of Myanmar. The assumption, of course, is that such
a portrayal would enhance regime security and safeguard the
traditional way of life, as interpreted by the ruling elites, against the
uncertainties of modernity.
Other SLORC tactics include accommodation and coercion. More
than 2,000 political detainees have been released since April 1992,
including ex-general Tin Oo and the NLD chairman Kyi Maung, both

 Page 409
of whom had been serving long prison sentences for sedition and
contravention of the Official Secrets Act. In January 1993 the
sentences (ranging from ten years to death) of citizens convicted since
the military came to power were commuted.

35 The government managed to confound and surprise its critics by

initially engaging in a dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi and later
releasing her unconditionally on July 10, 1995. In releasing its arch
foe, who apparently was no longer considered a serious security
threat, SLORC exhibited its high confidence in its ability to manage
the political transition. Thus far, it appears to have been a low-cost,
high-benefit measure. SLORC received international acclaim without
any detrimental consequences to regime security, demonstrating that
SLORC is capable of utilizing conciliatory measures to its
advantage.36

The government, however, is not averse to using its coercive powers

when it judges a situation threatening enough to warrant punitive
actions. A case in point was its response to Aung San Suu Kyi's
attempt in May 1996 to call a meeting at her residence of party
representatives who were elected in May 1990. This act of defiance,
apparently timed to coincide with the sixth anniversary of the general
elections in which the NLD won more than 80 percent of the seats,
was seen by the government as a serious provocation that challenged
the legitimacy and authority of the ruling military junta. In a
preemptive move, the authorities detained more than 200 elected
representatives of the NLD for "questioning." With more than 90
percent of the delegates absent, Aung San Suu Kyi then upped the
ante by transforming the meeting into a party congress. The Western
media and governments entered the fray and soundly condemned the
government for its actions while encouraging the NLD leaders.
During the course of the congress, the state-sponsored national
constitutional convention was harshly criticized and a resolution was
passed entrusting the party's central executive committee to draw up
the NLD version of the state constitution. That action prompted the
military leadership to launch a vitriolic media blitz against both the
NLD leadership and its foreign sympathizers. Organized mass rallies
sprang up all over the country, wherein the NLD leadership was
denounced for its unpatriotic and self-serving acts and the progress on
all fronts under the present government was solemnly reaffirmed. The
rallies were followed by a nationwide poster campaign against
"neocolonialists, foreign stooges and destructionists." Moreover, a
new law entitled "The Law Protecting the Peaceful and Systematic
Transfer of State Responsibility and the Successful Performance of
the Functions of the National Convention Against Disturbances and
Oppositions" was enacted on June 7, 1996. This law imposes tough
penalties for infringe-

 Page 410
ments: harsh jail sentences for individuals and a variety of
punishments for organizations that include deregistration, suspension,
confiscation of assets, and banning.
Managing Relations with Ethnic Minorities
SLORC has been quite successful in dealing with the insurgent threat.
Until 1989, peace negotiations between the government and the rebels
had not been particularly successful, and several amnesties had not
been enough to win over the majority of rebels. The armed opposition
always insisted on political recognition, the right to retain their
military organization, and territorial rights as conditions for conflict
resolutionterms that the government of the day could not concede to.
Under Senior General Than Shwe's leadership, circumstances and
(more or less self-imposed) constraints on both sides have changed
considerably, with remarkable results. First, weakened by internal
dissent the communist rebel organization disintegrated in 1989.
Breaking the ideological mold, the various units reorganized
themselves into ethnic-based groups and made peace with the
government. Subsequently, in a radical departure from the past,
SLORC instituted a new modus vivendi for armed opposition groups
wishing to "come to the light." This approach allows the ex-rebel
groups to function as indigenous ethnic organizations with their own
militia and recognizes their leaders' authority over their base areas.
These indigenous group leaders are accorded a say in the development
of their respective regions and also may take part in the ongoing
constitutional process. Meanwhile, military pressure is kept up on the
more intransigent groups, punctuated by gestures of goodwill such as
the unilateral moratorium on offensive operations in the Kayin state
that was announced in April 1992.
To alleviate the problem of the developmental gap between central
Myanmar and the outlying regions, SLORC formed a high-level
border area development committee in 1989 and initiated the Ministry
for Progress of Border Areas and National Races and Development
Affairs in January 1994. These groups are seeking to foster national
solidarity through the socioeconomic development of areas where the
ethnic minorities reside and rebel enclaves have been situated. The
government envisages a multisector border area development scheme
covering sixteen target areas in Myanmar's western, northern, and
eastern border regions, encompassing nearly 59,000 square miles (19
percent of the state's total area) and 3.5 million inhabitants. To be
implemented over the eleven years from 1993 to 2004, the scheme
includes infrastructure and human resources development, social
welfare enhancement, and economic activities in agriculture, forestry,
livestock breeding, trade,

 Page 411
energy generation, and mineral exploration and exploitation. Despite
the detractors' contention that the plan is a ploy to extend state
hegemony over the ethnic minorities and that forced labor is being
used for infrastructure development, the plan's impact on the local
populations, combined with the economic opportunities created by
border trade, seems to have reinforced the government's claim that it
will uphold the interests of indigenous races. The armed rebel groups
responded by accepting the truce on the terms offered by the
government, which are similar to those given to the ex-communists.
These agreements do not imply, however, that the problems of ethnic
minorities have been overcome. In the short to medium term, violent
guerrilla action by intransigent elements can be quite damaging to the
fragile peace, and development projects are especially vulnerable to
such attacks. Moreover, it would be fanciful to expect that tensions
arising out of alienation, misperception, mistrust, enmity, and
insecurity, exacerbated by decades of traumatic confrontation, could
be removed overnight.

37 After the initial step of achieving a truce, the more complex and
difficult tasks of reconciling different views and aspirations with
regard to regional autonomy, ethnic relations, resource allocations,
and other divisive issues remain to be tackled.

International Strategies: Toward Regionalism

Myanmar's "independent foreign policy," presumably guided by the
five principles of peaceful coexistence, has been consciously dictated
by the country's "geographical position and perceptions of what
constitutes its own security" (Han 1988: 69).38 Foreign policy has
been intertwined with the security policy aimed at preserving
independence, ensuring the perpetuation of the unitary nature of the
Myanmar state, and safeguarding its territorial integrity through
national unity and internal strength. Strict neutrality and
nonalignment, combined with low-key bilateral relations, have been
the means employed to achieve these goals. Myanmar's political and
military leaders have always been sensitive to regional and
extraregional developments and have constantly taken great pains to
avoid situations that would give outsiders the slightest excuse for
aggression or intervention in Myanmar's domestic affairs.
SLORC is now actively pursuing a policy of developing close
bilateral relations with its regional neighbors by utilizing economic
ties. China, which has extended assistance in the economic and
military spheres, has become a staunch ally. The ASEAN states have
adopted a "constructive engagement" policy and have become major
investors in Myanmar. Moreover, Yangon is relying increasingly on
ASEAN's support to counter Western attacks and boycotts (Than
1994). Myanmar

 Page 412
has been steadily drawn into the ASEAN community. Thailand
invited Foreign Minister Ohn Gyaw to the 1994 ASEAN Ministerial
Meeting in Bangkok. In March 1995, Ohn Gyaw, who was
accompanying Senior General Than Shwe on his official visit to
Vietnam, publicly expressed Myanmar's interest in joining ASEAN
(Straits Times, Mar. 12, 1995). In July of that year Myanmar acceded
to the ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Cooperation. Brunei extended to
Ohn Gyaw the privilege of attending the 1995 ASEAN Ministerial
Meeting, where Myanmar formally presented the instrument of
accession to the treaty. Myanmar's junta leader, Senior General Than
Shwe, was subsequently invited to attend the Bangkok summit of
leaders from the "Southeast Asian ten" in December 1995 (Straits
Times, Dec. 13, 1995). Myanmar's desire to embrace ASEAN is
further exemplified by its unprecedented move in signing the
Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapons Free Zone (SEANWFZ) treaty at
the Bangkok summit. The ASEAN attitude toward Myanmar
generally has been favorable, and Myanmar was granted observer
status at the 1996 ASEAN foreign ministers' meeting in Jakarta and
became a full-fledged member in July 1997.
Thus, Myanmarwhich has diligently pursued its neutrality to the
extent of leaving the Nonaligned Movement in 1979has broken
significant new ground. After eschewing participation in regional
groups and relying on friendly bilateral relations with all nations,
Myanmar's foreign policy has come full circle since the country's
endorsement of the spirit of regional cooperation during the 1955
Bandung Conference. ASEAN's attraction to Myanmar lies in the
association's "constructive engagement" policy. Constructive
engagement emphasizes confidence-building measures predicated on
noninterference in internal affairs, demonstration effect, gentle
persuasion, and quiet diplomacy, thereby enhancing mutual trust and
goodwill. SLORC, which has perceived itself as under siege from
Western powers, can gain legitimacy (both within and outside the
country) by being part of the internationally respected regional group.
It seems that both economic and political (domestic as well as
international) imperatives are behind Myanmar's move to integrate
itself with the region via ASEAN (Sukhumbhand 1996: 6).
Myanmar also secured membership in the ASEAN Regional Forum
(ARF) and participated in the ARF meeting that immediately followed
the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting of July 1996. Myanmar's acceptance
into ASEAN's foremost forum for multilateral security discussion
may be seen as another significant success for the country's central
decision makers' efforts to gain legitimacy and employ the
cooperative approach in the area of regional security.

 Page 413
Myanmar also has been a strong participant in multilateral forums
such as the U.N. General Assembly and other U.N.-sponsored
conferences, where it has staunchly defended its position on human
rights, democracy, and development and emphasized its achievements
in economic growth, privatization, border areas development, drug
eradication, and national reconciliation.

39

In essence, Myanmar leaders have employed bilateral diplomacy

within the framework of strict neutralism to establish friendly
relations with all countries, particularly regional states. That policy
was supplemented in the 1990s by attempts to enter into regional
cooperation through ASEAN institutions. In addition to improving
Myanmar's external security environment, diplomacy also serves as an
adjunct to domestic security measures in shoring up the regime
against threats from within.
The Military Dimension
As we have seen, the paramount concern of the present military
leadership has been the perpetuation of unity and corporate solidarity
in the armed forces. Dire warnings about the catastrophic
consequences of disunity and cleavage in the military have been
enunciated repeatedly by its leaders. The rank and file are reminded
constantly of the threats posed by an array of hostile elements such as
communists, ethnic insurgents, so-called "treasonous minions" of left-
and right-wing interventionists, neoimperialists and neocolonials, the
irresponsible Western media, self-serving expatriates and maligned
lobbies, hypocritical proponents of human rights and democracy, and
a hostile world order.
In response to the perceived threats to corporate solidarity posed by
the political opposition, the military closed ranks amid the fear of
individual retribution and divisive factionalism. This sentiment is
exemplified by the statement made by General Saw Maung at the 44th
Anniversary Armed Forces Day parade on March 27, 1989:
Our State has been able to stand firm and united because our Tatmadaw,
from its very inception has been standing firm unitedly, loyally and
valiantly....You have witnessed the unity and solidarity of our Tatmadaw
in the recent incidence [the 1988 upheaval]. However much the
unscrupulous persons tried to sow discord among us, we rallied around the
Tatmadaw we loved...adhering to the principle that our Tatmadaw is our
father and our mother. (Government of Myanmar 1991: 101-2)

Attempts have been made to raise the professional capability of the

armed forces through reorganization, expansion, and procurement of

 Page 414
modern weapons. After 1988 the number of regional commands were
increased from nine to ten and the number of combat divisions from
nine to ten. Three new regional control commands with respective
combat units were established for border regions where cease-fires are
in force. Air force, navy, and infantry combat arms such as armor and
artillery, air defense, and signals were expanded through the
formation of additional units equipped with materiel purchased from
abroad (Selth 1996: 174-89). Upgrading of senior ranks has been
instituted across the board, ostensibly to bring command and staff
positions in line with the rank structure practiced internationally. The
total strength of the armed forces reportedly was increased from some
180,000 in 1987 to 286,000 in 1995 (International Institute for
Strategic Studies 1987, 1995).

40

Arms, ammunition, and equipment with a market value of about

U.S.$2 billion reportedly have been purchased.41 The procurement
included small arms ammunition, automatic rifles, machine guns,
rocket-propelled grenade launchers, mortars and mortar bombs,
recoilless rifles, aerial ordnance, trucks and other vehicles, Yugoslav
and Chinese supersonic jet fighters, Chinese military transports,
Polish helicopters, Chinese-made light and main battle tanks and
tracked armored vehicles, air defense radar, surface-to-air missiles,
antiaircraft and long-range artillery, multiple rocket launchers,
Hainan-class patrol boats, Jianghu-class missile-armed frigates,
Yugoslav coastal patrol crafts and a variety of surveillance and
communication equipment. However, whether these weapons and
equipment can be effectively utilized and maintained remains
questionable.
According to a knowledgeable observer, despite the massive
expansion program and the modernization of its military inventory,
Myanmar "still does not possess any real power-projection capability"
(Selth 1996: 148, 152). It seems that SLORC has undertaken this
expansion and modernization for "purely domestic political reasons"
and out of the "fear that it might lose its monopoly of political power"
(Selth 1996: 154). It can also be seen as a measure taken to satisfy the
demands within the military for more professionalism and to uplift the
morale of the combat servicesespecially the navy and the air
forcewhich have been saddled with obsolescent equipment for a long
time. As such, the military expansion does not contradict the domestic
orientation of Myanmar's security conception, even though taken at
face value it creates the impression of a classic realist attempt to
enhance the country's military capability to counter external
aggression.

 Page 415

Conclusion
In the Myanmar conception, the security of the state, regime, and
military are conflated. A threat to any one institution is seen as a
threat to all. The primary security concernsnational unity and regime
securityare internal and lie in the political dimension. Ethnic
separatism, which has threatened Myanmar's unity from within since
independence, is currently contained. But contestation of the regime
has become more acute since 1988 and is currently the chief concern
of SLORC. The economic dimension is viewed essentially in terms of
enhancing regime legitimacy and making available the resources to
build military power and solidarity. At the international level the
concern is with state sovereignty and territorial integrity. In the post-
1988 period, Myanmar's government has become concerned with
external, primarily Western, attempts to undermine its authority by
supporting human rights and democratic activists in Myanmar.
In summary, the values included under the label of security are the
unity of the military and its dominant political role; domestic order
and stability; national unity; and the territorial integrity of the state.
They are all assumed to be interdependent and no clear rank ordering
can be ascertained, although at the moment regime security appears to
have the highest priority. The approaches deployed by the central
decision makers over the last four decades embrace both competitive
and cooperative strategies. Military force was the primary means used
to deal with the threat posed by ethnic minorities until SLORC came
to power. Since then, accommodation has yielded successful resultsat
least for now. As for the political threats to incumbent regimes, the
strategy used during the socialist era from 1962 to 1988 was again a
mixture of coercion and co-optation. In the mid-1990s, however,
SLORC has become intolerant of political opposition and the strategy
has become much more coercive. In external relations, Myanmar
pursued a cooperative strategy based on strict neutrality up to 1962
and then retreated to isolation during 1963-72 period. Thereafter, a
broad neutralist orientation stressing bilateralism was evident. Under
strong attack and criticism from the West, SLORC in the 1990s
appears to be moving toward regional cooperation via ASEAN.
SLORC believes that a firm grip by the military on the social,
political, and economic dimensions of the state is necessary to achieve
national security. Economic prosperity through foreign direct
investment and state-regulated private initiatives also is viewed as a
necessary ingredient of the security matrix to ease management of
political transition, promote national reconciliation, and enhance
military strength. Since

 Page 416
independence, overt security challenges to the Myanmar state have
been internal. Naturally, then, forty years of incessant internal conflict
have produced a bias toward domestic security concerns. The fixation
on national unity and regime security as the pivotal elements of the
national security problematic has led to a preference for order and
conformity over pluralism and diversity. The state is continually
portrayed as under attack from enemies labeled "economic
insurgents," "black marketeers," "extremists," "destructionists,''
"saboteurs," "axe handles of foreign powers," "neocolonialists," and
"cultural imperialists." The concept of internal security often has been
manipulated to serve the interests of incumbent governments.
The state's conception of security is contested. The regime's detractors
point out that the very notion of state security divorced from concerns
for "human security" has resulted in a "security psychosis" that has led
to the present predicament of domestic opposition and Western
reproach (Booth and Vale 1995: 295). In this respect, the state's
conception of national security is seen as a "euphemism for the
ambitions and self-image" of the ruling elites (Cohen 1989: 50). In
fact, the contention is that "in its usage, the concept has degenerated
into a labelling device" and its "specification...in turn depends on the
presumably self-serving interpretation given it by the national
leadership" (Khong 1991: 14).
The security problematic of Myanmar is thus enmeshed in the
problems of political legitimacy and national unity that accompany
the process of state-making along the lines of a modern majoritarian
state (Ayoob 1993). In the domestic context, the current conception of
state security held by the military leadership is highly state-centric and
of a zero-sum nature. Moreover, it is conflated with regime security. It
will have to be modified to incorporate societal elements if the goals
of national solidarity and political stability are to be achieved. At the
regional and international levels, it remains to be seen whether the
cautious steps taken thus far to incorporate regionalism into the
traditional neutralism are sufficient to keep up with the dynamic
regional and international developments that impinge upon state
security. All in all, one can safely say that the past and present
fixation on domestic security in Myanmar will remain well into the
next century.

 Page 417

13
Thailand
The Elite's Shifting Conceptions Of Security
Panitan Wattanayagorn
Thailand's national security practice, like that of many other countries,
has been dominated by its elite.

1 The elite have essentially controlled the government institutions,

defined national security, implemented their ideas through a
hierarchical structure, and mobilized support using cooperative or
even suppressive measures.2 The dominance of a select group in the
Bangkok area began in 1782 when the first Chakri king (Rama I)
founded the new capital and has continued to this day. This situation
allows only a few individuals in society to exert a significant impact
on Thailand's conception of security.

The composition of the elite group is, however, far from static. For
more than a century, various groups have competed with each other
for the domination of Thai society. The main challenge to those in
power often comes from another elite group or from different factions
within the ruling elite itself (Sinsawasdi 1986, 1996). Moreover, the
base of the elite group has broadened over the years. New individuals
and groups have begun to participate in the central decision-making
process over the past several decades, particularly in the 1980s
(Tongdhamachart et al. 1983: 4; Alagappa 1987a: 32). And as the
elite's domination waxes and wanes, so does its influence on the
conception of national security.


 Page 418

The Beginning of "National" Security

In the mid-nineteenth century, the king and the aristocracy were
predominant in building and securing the foundations of the absolutist
Siamese state. Creating and defending a territorially defined state,
constructing a centralized administration, and implementing a national
ideology were among the main tasks of the elite group. King
Chulalongkorn the Great (Rama V) (1868-1910), in particular,
systematically established the centralized civilian bureaucracy, which
"ran the provinces, kept the peace, collected taxes, and educated the
children" (Phongpaichit and Baker 1995: 235). King Chulalongkorn
created, reorganized, and centralized institutions such as the army,
police force, and ministries of finance, interior, justice, and others,
using a European bureaucratic model, with specific objectives in
mind.

3 Above all, he wished to exert his authority against the powerful

aristocrats who dominated the economy of the state. Indeed, the great
aristocrats had dominated the state's economy to such an extent that
the king had to borrow money from them for his royal expenses.4 A
further purpose was to unite the country to cope with the expansive
colonial ambitions of the West. In particular, the British were pressing
forward from Burma and from Singapore through the Malay states,
and the French were rapidly stretching their control in Indochina
toward Siam. In the mid-nineteenth century, therefore, the elite's
concept of security concentrated on the establishment of a decisive
authority as well as on the defense of its loosely defined territory.5
Indeed, Thailand's modern conception of security originated in the
competition for power among the elites, the establishment of the
state's centralized authority, and the state's determination to remain an
independent nation.
After King Chulalongkorn and the royal aristocrats succeeded in
establishing control over the old aristocrats through the new
bureaucracy, the new ruling group turned to new objectives: creating a
national ideology and centralizing the religious establishments. The
elite's aim was to further unify the new nation and consolidate its
power. Hence the idea that all the people in Siamthe Mon, Burmese,
Shan, Vietnamese, Khmer, Lao, and Chinesewere in some way "Thai"
under one king began to appear. As the king proclaimed: "The Thai,
the Lao, and the Shan all consider themselves peoples of the same
race. They all respect me as their supreme sovereign, the protector of
their wellbeing."6 Given the immediate threats from the colonial
powers, the introduction of the concept of "Thainess" under the
institution of the monarchy was a rational strategy for organizing the
people. Organizing the people as one unified nation was seen as vital
for the wellbeing of

 Page 419
the new state; it was also important for the consolidation of the power
of the new ruling elite. Accordingly, the notion of chart Thai (the Thai
nation) as a single community began to take root for the new
absolutist Siam by the early twentieth century.
With the powerful bureaucracy as its tool, the elite group also exerted
more control over Buddhism. The control of religious practice was
seen as another urgent task of the elite. At that time, most people were
educated at the wat (temple) using a variety of languages and scripts.
Moreover, there were different sects of Buddhism, and religious
practice varied widely. Through control of religious behavior, the two
components perceived to be important in preserving a homogeneous
communitystandardization of the education and the language of the
people could now be achieved. The early Chakri kings such as Rama
IV (Mongkut) had begun to reform the Buddhist doctrine for the
Siamese during the mid-nineteenth century. At the turn of the century,
all monastic institutions were reorganized into a hierarchical structure
during the reign of King Chulalongkorn. King Chulalongkorn's
brother Wachirayan was appointed as the person in charge of drafting
a Sangha Act. The 1902 act imposed a high degree of central control
by arranging all monastic institutions in a pyramidal hierarchy
(Phongpaichit and Baker 1995: 231). The king and the supreme
patriarch were placed at the apex of the central religious
administrative structure; the provincial and local temples were at the
middle and bottom levels. The new centralized religious
administration utilized one language, one syllabus, and one concept of
Buddhism at every temple. Thus the elite's notion of one single nation
with one religion was institutionalized at the turn of the century.
With the two core valuesnation and religionclearly established, the
last pillar of the new absolutist statethe institution of kingshipwas
conclusively addressed by the elite. Specifically, King Vajiravudh
(Rama VI) demonstrated the intent with this proclamation: "The king
is the one who possesses the power of the group and he uses this
is the one who possesses the power of the group and he uses this
power for the benefit and happiness of everyone. Therefore,
respecting or admiring the king is respecting and admiring the power
of the group....Being loyal to the king is the same as loving oneself
because the king has the duty of protecting the nation."

7 The notion of a nation under a king is deeply rooted in the religious

ideology and political practice of Siam (Alagappa 1987a: 40-43). In
the mid-nineteenth century, however, the Thai elite began to elaborate
the historical roots of the monarchy, primarily for the support of the
monarchy's legitimacy. It was King Vajiravudh who openly brought
the concepts of nation and religion together with the institution of
kingship. He believed in the need to unify all the different peoples in
Siam under a common set of "core

 Page 420
values." The people, he contended, were not bound together by
common valuesa condition seen as a potential threat to the well-being
of the Thai nation and its monarchy. His effort was also directed
toward uniting the Thai nation against the Chinese minorities, who
played a significant role in the economy.
King Vajiravudh formally advocated three core values to be preserved
for Siam: the "Thai" nation, the Buddhist religion, and the Thai
monarchy. A person with "Thai" values was broadly defined as
anyone who was born in Siam, spoke Thai, and was committed to
Buddhism and the Thai monarchy. Commitment to the three
institutions was seen as essential to the stability of prathetchart
(nation-state), the unified concept adopted by the elite to organize the
people under the same core values within a defined geographic space.
King Vajiravudh understood the state's limited capacity to impose the
elite's concept of the prathetchart, however. More important, he
foresaw the consequences that could arise if the elite's core values
were to be imposed forcefully upon the different ethnic groups.
Therefore, his efforts to unify the Thai nation-state were mostly
rhetorical and did not result in repressive measures against groups
deemed not to have "Thai" values. Nevertheless, it was during the
reign of King Vajiravudh that chart (the nation), satsana (religion),
and phra mahakasat (the monarchy) emerged formally for the first
time as a powerful and integrated concept.
"National" Security Under the Military
When political power shifted from the monarchy to the military in
1932,

8 the three basic core values of national security remained unaltered.

Initially the concepts of one nation and one religion were firmly
supported by the new elite group. Moreover, the new elite's objectives
in pursuing national security were the same: to gain decisive authority
over other competing groups and to counter internal and external
aggression. The difference now was that the military was the new
leader, and it managed to forge an alliance with leading civilian
bureaucrats. Since that alliance in 1932, Thailand's conception of
security has been directly under the influence of two bureaucratic
groups, the military and the bureaucracy.9

Only a few years after the 1932 revolution, significant changes

occurred in the ways the traditional core values were interpreted and
imposed. On May 8, 1939, Field Marshal Phibul Songkram's cabinet
reportedly took ten minutes to decide to change the country's name
from Siam to Thailand.10 From that moment on, the means for
building a unified "Thai" state consisted principally of military-
authoritarian

 Page 421
measures. Numerous institutions were established to support the
military elite's interpretation of "Thainess"

11for example, there were orders for "proper" Thai language, new
national dress, a new official new year's day, and new legislation to
protect "Thai" society. Among these new measures were a series of
''anticommunist" orders and legislation such as the Communist Act of
1932, the Anticommunist Activities Acts of 1952, 1969, and 1979,
Order 78 of the junta of 1972, and the Order of the National Reform
Council of 1976, which gave the military enormous powers to define
security, set up its apparatus, and implement its expanded policies.
Under these measures a person deemed not to be "Thai" can easily be
prosecuted as a communist traitor.

For almost fifty years, the military elite's focus on national security
was militaristic and authoritarian (Samudavanija 1982: 6-24; Settabut
1987; Santasombat 1989: 90-97). It emphasized unity, stability, order,
and discipline. More important, the military often used force to
impose its values through a "cult of personality." Military leaders such
as Phibul, Sarit, Thanom, Prapat, and Narong were among the cult
personalities who used their positions to impose their personal ideas
on the people in the name of the Thai state. "Believe in the leader, our
nation will be saved" was one of their slogans (Samudavanija 1990:
106). In this regard, the three core values under the heading of
national security were modified by the elite to suit the purposes of
military statism.
Field Marshal Phibul Songkhram, in particular, imposed his idea of
national security with extremism. Phibul's series of cultural edicts
called "Rattha Niyom" in Thai, for example, instructed the public in a
range of "do's" and "don'ts" for good, cultured behavior ranging from
personal hygiene, health, and diets to a national dress code (Wright
1991: 98-100). Moreover, Phibul's restriction of the rights of Chinese
immigrants was another of his strategies to build a secure nation free
from foreign economic domination. Phibul's idea of national security
also included recovering territory that had earlier belonged to or been
claimed by Thailand. The lands along the Mekong in Laos and
Cambodia were Phibul's target. In 1941, Phibun's military clashed
with the French troops in the disputed areas in Cambodia. With Japan
as mediator, Phibun's government gained three Cambodian provinces
and a small territory of Laos. Because he was successful in imposing
his ideas of nationalism, patriotism, militarism, and irredentism in the
name of national security, Phibun's political power was subsequently
secured for several years before a new domestic political crisis would
erupt within the ruling elite.
In the late 1950s, the elite's concept of national security extended to
include another dimension: development.12 The concept involved the

 Page 422
modernity, progress, wealth, and efficiency of the state. The elite
began to realize that their ideas of security could not be imposed
forcefullyand certainly not without economic development. Regime
opponents at that time were generally from the rural areas and had
been born in poverty. To help carry out the military's developmental
tasks, various bureaucratic institutions and military agencies were
established.

13 Among the key organizations were the National Security Council

(NSC), the Central Security Operation Command of the Supreme
Commander's Office, the Accelerated Rural Development Agency, the
Internal Security Operation Command (ISOCformerly known as the
Communist Suppression Operations Command), the Capital Security
Command, and the Army's Directorate for Civil Affairs. Some of
these agencies, such as the ISOC, were directly responsible for
defense-oriented mass mobilization programs including the National
Defense Volunteers, the Volunteer Development and Self-Defense
Villages, and the Military Reservists for National Security. Other
agencies including the NSC were responsible for coordinating projects
such as the Strategic Development for Security in Specific Areas,
which aimed to control and develop villages in the communist-
infested areas.14

Government orders and legislation provided the military with a

special role in managing national security affairs. There was the
Government Order 298/2519 (1976), for example, which stipulated
that the army has a special role in national development. There was
the Commander of the Capital Security and Order Act of 1979, which
gave the supreme commander control over activities such as
peacekeeping, crime suppression, and other security-related
operations in the Bangkok area. Among the most significant orders,
however, were those that were part of the new strategy to fight
communism under the Prime Minister's Office: Orders 66/2523
(1980) and 65/2525 (1982) (Samudavanija, Snitwongse, and
Bunbongkarn 1990: apps. II-III). Those two orders allowed the
military to use the country's resources more freely in fighting the
communists. It also allowed the government to grant amnesty to the
communist insurgents, who had begun fighting actively against the
state in 1946. In the end the two new prime minister's orders,
combined with international developmentsespecially the change in the
PRC's policy toward supporting communist insurrection in other
countriesenabled the military to defeat communism in 1982.
A few years before the defeat of communism, however, the elite's
militaristic concept of national security began to changedue largely to
the leadership change that took place in the mid-1970s. In 1973, the
military regime that had ruled the country for several decades was
overthrown by the student movement. The aftermath was one of the

 Page 423
most violent periods in Thai history. For nearly three years, radical
groups of students and their right-wing opponents fought one another
almost daily over the ideology and direction of the country. The
student movement believed that the old elitethe military and the
bureaucracy with their capitalist ideology and support of the United
Statesshould be replaced by a new group of leaders. Moreover, some
radical thinkers argued that the institution of the monarchy was simply
the "big landlord" and that revolution was needed to turn the country
around.

15 But the military crushed the student-led movement on October 6,

1976 leaving many people dead and injuredand regained control over
society.16

After the October 6 incident, several thousand people, mostly

students, fled to the jungle, joined the Communist Party of Thailand
(CPT), and mounted attacks on the government. In addition to this
active opposition from within, the military regime faced intensified
conflict with the neighboring countries in Indochina. Faced with
imminent threats beyond the military's capability to handle, the elite
then changed tactics. In response to the internal aggression, the elite
used the two prime minister's orders to grant amnesty and allow more
participation by other groups in society. To counter the external
threats, the elite sought support from the international community in
general and from China in particular to oppose Vietnam in the
Cambodian conflict.17 Therefore, other civilian elementsparticularly
the leading academics and foreign affairs expertswere allowed to
participate in the making and implementing of national security policy
for the first time since 1932. Consequently the traditional core values
were modified and reinterpreted to include new concepts such as
democracy, territorial integrity, political independence, and a
favorable regional environment.18 Nevertheless, the military kept
tight control over civilian participation in national security issues. The
conflict in the late 1980s between Prime Minister Chartchai
Choonhavan's foreign policy advisers and the military over the
development of policy toward the former Indochina countries is a case
in point.19 Eventually the military demanded that the prime minister
dismiss one of his key advisers, largely because of the adviser's
criticism of the military establishment. The military's demand was
accommodated.
In Thailand, as in many developing countries, the military have
historically considered themselves to be the protectors or defenders of
national security as well as the developers or modernizers of society.
Even at the end of the twentieth century, this traditional perception
still prevails in the thinking of military leaders: "In accordance with
the Constitution, the Royal Thai Armed Forces has the responsibility
of

 Page 424
safeguarding the sovereignty, security, and national interest of the
State, conducting armed conflict or war, acting as a deterrent in order
to protect the Institution of the Monarchy, and suppressing and
deterring rebellion and anarchy in order to maintain the security of the
State and to develop the country."

20 More than three decades ago, one scholar had already observed the
effect of such thinking: "Since the kingdom became a constitutional
regime in 1932 the military has ruled, led the ruling groups,
dominated the institutions of government, and set the style of Thai
politics" (Wilson 1962: 253). Through decades of domination over the
governmental institutions responsible for formulating and
implementing security policies, therefore, the Thai military elite has
continued to define security for the country and to enforce its own
definitions through authoritarian structures, with support from the
bureaucracy.

The dominance of the military elite, however, has not gone

unchallenged. In fact, its attempts to rule and to shape national
ideology have been challenged again and again by various competing
groups, including factions within the military itself (Dhiravegin 1986;
Samudavanija 1982; Settabut 1987). Thai politics, one scholar
observes, "has been dominated by intense conflict among and within
competing forces as the traditional consensus over values and actions
was challenged" (Samudavanija 1982: 67). Indeed, the contestation
among the elites over power and authority to rule the society is a
historic theme. And no contestation has been more intense, perhaps,
than the competition for control over the issues deemed vital to
national security.
The Contest over Security
In Thai society, it has been observed that the domination of one elite
group is naturally contested by other elite groups. Specifically there
has been "a pattern of rhythmic alternation between elites who either
proposed political and social innovations or who resisted change
preferring to maintain order and stability" (Wright 1991: 11). In the
1930s, the contest was mainly between the royalists and the
opposition elite. For almost 60 years after the 1932 revolution, the
contests were concentrated among the military, the bureaucracy, and
the civilian elites. In the latest round of contestation in the 1990s, the
struggle is largely among the bureaucracy, the politicians, and the
mass groups that have emerged in the 1990s. Although the contests
have involved several issues, most have concentrated on the
interpretation of such concepts as nation and state, regime legitimacy,
and the authority of the elite.
In the early twentieth century, only 22 years after the reign of King
Chulalongkorn, an intense struggle for power erupted among the elite

 Page 425
groups. Essentially the contest was between the monarchy and the
antiroyalists, led by young civilian, military, and bureaucracy figures
(see Mektrairat 1992). This conflict focused on three issues: first, who
should control the enormous wealth generated by the expanding
economy; second, the rule of law that should be exercised by the
bureaucrats; third, and most important, the concept of chart (the
nation). The conflict over the chart issue emerged from a new sense
of nationalism that had been growing for over two decades. The
absolute monarchy was perceived as no longer pertinent for the
development of the new nation-state. Rather, the opponents of royal
absolutism believed, there should be three new core valuesnation,
religion, and state.

21 The final outcome of the contest was the bloodless revolution of

June 24, 1932, which forced King Prajadhiphok (Rama VII) to
abdicate. Although power and authority were now transferred to the
new elite group, the new rulers accommodated the institution of
kingship by placing it under the constitution. It was clear that the
conflicting values among the elites had played a significant role in the
revolution.

From the 1940s through the early 1990s, contestation among the elites
in Thai society occurred more frequentlyand several times with more
violent consequences (Dhiravegin 1996; Samudavanija 1995). The
contests mainly involved the same issue: the legitimacy of whichever
elite group was defining the values of the nation. Between 1940 and
1960, military statism was contested by the opposition, led largely by
a group of the civilian elites. The principal contested issues were how
the country should develop economically and politically, and what its
position should be in the conflict with communism. Between 1960
and 1970, as the ruling elite intensified its effort to impose military-
oriented concepts of national security, intense contestation erupted
with violent consequencesfor instance, struggles increased between
the government and the Communist Party of Thailand (CPT) and the
Muslim separatists in the south.22 By 1967 some 6,600 people had
joined the CPT; in 1957 there had been only 1,900 members.
Moreover, communism had spread to 38 of the 71 provinces in 1971a
dramatic increase from only a few villages in the 1960s. And when
Southeast Asia became a battleground of the Cold War, external
powersthe United States and later Chinabecame involved
inadvertently in the contest among the competing forces in Thai
society (Jain 1984; Muscat 1990).
From the late 1960s to the late 1970s, students and other citizen
groups joined the contestation over the legitimacy of the ruling elite
and its values. Indeed, the student movement posed the greatest
challenge to military dominance, and in 1973 it effectively toppled the
military dictatorship. The student-led movement, which attempted to
set new

 Page 426
ideals for society with the support of politicians and civilians, lasted
less than three years. The new ideas were mainly the left-wing
ideologies the student leaders had brought back from their overseas
studies. In their eyes, bureaucratic malpractice and corruption, labor
problems, alliance with foreign countries such as the United States,
and social injustices stemming from capitalism threatened the survival
of Thai society. A sweeping change was demanded. Demonstrations
became a daily event.
By late 1976, conservative forces within the military and the
bureaucracy mounted a counterattack. The contest was primarily
between radical leftists and the conservative group over the type of
society, the system of government, and the legitimacy of the regime.
When the military-led right-wing group crushed the student
movement on October 6, 1976, it effectively placed the country under
an extreme conservative regime. Thousands of students and activists,
as noted earlier, then escaped the crackdown and joined the CPT in
the jungle. The 1976 coup, however, could not turn the clock back to
the 1950s. Anticommunism and ultraconservative ideology were not a
sufficient basis for political legitimation in light of the rapid social
and economic changes that had transpired. Moreover, the government
could not cope with the powerful threat from the Communist Party of
Thailand. Nor could it gain the support of the intellectuals, the middle
class, the business community, the workers, or even the military. In
October 1977 the same military group that had staged the 1976 coup
dislodged the ultraconservative government and installed a less
conservative government, first under the leadership of General
Kriangsak Chomanan and later under General Prem Tinsulononda.
This quasi-democratic period was relatively more stable and lasted
through 1988.
In the early 1990s, however, the character of contestation began to
change significantly. In earlier conflicts, the focus had been on a few
core values and the contest was largely confined to a select group of
traditional elitesnamely the royalists, the military, the bureaucracy,
and later the intellectuals, the armed separatists, the communist
insurgents, and the student-led movement. By the beginning of the
1990s, the Thai state had developed its economy and the number of
urban middleclass people had increased significantly. More important,
the urban middle class felt it had little control over how the country
was being managed (Laothamatas 1993: 76-83). Furthermore,
middleclass people believed that the state was not responding to their
needs, and thus they demanded more participation in the state's ruling
process. What the middle class wanted, in fact, was to control the state
and its elite through participation in its political institutions
(Samudavanija 1994: 29). This was a new situation for Thailand. Now
a large number of people

 Page 427
demanded to participate in a ruling process that had been reserved for
small groups of the chosen.
As the state's economy became more developed, so too did the
influence of the middle class. Prosperity, equality, liberty, and justice
were among its most important demands (Kriengsak 1996: 125-69).
With their specific focus on decentralization, political and
bureaucratic reforms, and environmental and distributional issues,
those demands were far more complicated than any the governments
had faced in the past. The ruling military elite simply could not accept
such a radical change in society. In an effort to retain its influence, the
military sized power from the elected civilian government in February
1991. As in many successful coups in Thailand, the military abrogated
the constitution, dissolved the National Assembly, prohibited political
activity, imposed martial law, and appointed a ruling junta. This time
the junta was named the National Peace-Keeping Council (NPKC).
The junta justified its actions by concluding that the public was
thoroughly frustrated with corrupt politicians. That, however, was not
the problem. When it became apparent that the military junta wanted
direct and prolonged control of Thai politics, the public began to
protest in May 1992.

23 Mass demonstrations in many urban centers were then organized

and led by, among others, a former Bangkok governor. The protesters,
mostly from the urban middle class, centered their efforts on the army
strongman, General Suchinda Kraprayoon, who had just accepted the
premiership.

The contest took on a violent edge when more than 100,000 protesters
clashed with police commandos and armed military forces. It took a
direct appeal from the king to end the confrontation. Some 52
protesters had been killed, and 697 protesters and 284 police and
military officers injured.24 Damage to property and loss of wages
were reported at 1.79 billion baht during the four days of turbulence
(Theeravit 1993: 102). Related damage to industry, trade, services,
construction, and the like was estimated at 31.1 billion baht.25 The
military leader, General Suchinda, retired from politics.
Since 1946, despite all the contestation, one institution has managed
to remain largely intact: the monarchy has been able to stay above all
competition. King Bhumibol ascended to the throne only after his
elder brother, King Ananda (Rama VIII), died from a mysterious
gunshot wound in 1946. At that time, the role of the monarchy under
the constitution was not well defined. It was the military strongman,
Sarit, who systematically built up the role of the monarch as symbolic
leader of the nation (Chaloemtiarana 1979). Throughout the years, the
monarch has become institutionalized through a close relationship
with the

 Page 428
military elite, through an active role in religious practice, and through
the monarchy's own conduct, which is formally separated from the
role of governing.
Although the aftermath of the latest contestation between the ruling
elite and the urban middle class has not yet fully unfolded, the event
does reflect the intensity of the contest over central issues. Since
1932, there have been 17 military coups, 15 constitutions, and 21
prime ministers in Thailand. The latest contest reveals how much Thai
society has changed over the past decades. The fundamental threats to
the survival of Thailand are no longer the communist insurgency or
the armed separatists. Moreover, the external threat posed by
Thailand's communist neighbors has diminished. The country is, in
fact, moving progressively toward becoming an industrialized
economy. The middle class, in particular, is increasingly gaining
influence in Thai society. In this new security environment, most
urban middle-class people do not consider the traditional elitesthe
military, the bureaucracy, the politiciansas the only important forces
in leading the nation. Indeed, they no longer consider the elites'
monopoly of power and authority as appropriate for a changing Thai
society. Although the Thai nation, its religion, and the institution of
kingship have been firmly established, today the people, particularly
the urban middle class, demand much more say in defining the
meaning and content of security.
Changing Concepts of Security
As a new century approaches, most observers agree that Thai society
has been in the midst of a fundamental transformation. Significant
changes have occurred in its political and economic affairs. Beginning
in the early 1980s, the country's political stability was reinforced with
the defeat of communist subversion. By the late 1980s, political
stability had been further enhanced by the continued leadership of
Prime Minister Prem Tinsulanond. For eight consecutive years (1980-
88), several major development programs were able to proceed
without significant interruption. Moreover, the administration
provided opportunities for the parliamentary system to evolve. In
1988, a parliamentary democracy was established with an elected
premier for the first time in twelve years. Although the elected
government was challenged by the military elite in 1991 by way of a
coup, parliamentary democracy was restored quickly and decisively
by emerging new forces: the urban middle class, civilian politicians,
and other interest groups, including nongovernmental organizations.
The Thai economy was transformed as well, as the country contin-

 Page 429
ued to experience high economic growth rates. In fact, the real gross
domestic product (GDP) has increased by an average of 7 percent per
year since 1985 (National Economic and Social Development Board
1995). In 1988, Thailand's GDP increased at an unprecedented rate of
13.2 percentthe highest ever for the country and highest in the world
for that year. In 1995, the country's GDP was $144 billion, up from
$86 billion in 1990. Growth in nonagricultural sectorsparticularly in
export-oriented industriescontinued to be strong, while inflation was
kept to 3 to 5 percent. Increases in private-sector investment were
particularly significant in the late 1980s as the production bases
moved from Japan and other countries to Thailand. Recently,
however, the country has begun to experience economic slowdown.
Rising labor costs, infrastructure problems, and inappropriate finance
policies are among the obstacles that require major policy
adjustments. Nevertheless, Thailand, by and large, has begun to
transform itself from an agrarian society into a newly industrializing
economy.
These political and economic changes have altered the dominant role
of the military elite in defining Thai concepts of national security.
They have also led to the institutionalization of civilian control.
Moreover, the traditional security conceptions have been broadened to
include such issues as economic development, equality, liberty, and
justice with a specific focus on political reform, decentralization of
the bureaucracy, human rights, and environmental issues
(Samudavanija and Snitwongse 1992; Kriengsak 1996: 194-211;
Piriyarangsan and Phongpaichit 1996: 15-26; Samudavanija 1995). In
this new environment, the new elite has begun to articulate its
concepts of security more openly and formally.
Changes from Military Domination
In the 1990s, the Thai military elite, once a dominant power in Thai
politics, is no longer able to set the agenda in the creation and
politics, is no longer able to set the agenda in the creation and
implementation of national security policy. After the May 1992
incident, the National Assembly immediately passed constitutional
amendments allowing only an elected member of parliament to
become prime ministerthus preventing military leaders from stepping
directly into politics. The new charter also designates the Speaker of
the House of Representatives, instead of the Speaker of the Senate, as
president of parliament. Furthermore, new amendments limit the
power of the appointed senators to initiate a general debate against the
government and to vote on no-confidence motions. These new
conditions were designed to prevent the military elite, which usually
has influence over the senators, from gaining control over parliament.

26 Finally, the Internal

 Page 430
Peace-Keeping Command Act, which gave excessive power to the
military, has been repealed and the military's use of force in domestic
affairs now requires cabinet approval. Thus an era of strong military
domination in Thai politics is coming to an end.
The May 1992 incident enabled the civilian government to become
significantly involved in military appointments for the first time.
While the new amendment was awaiting the king's signature, Anand
Panyarachun was appointed caretaker prime minister. Anand then
went on to do what many critics had considered impossible: he
removed the high-ranking military officers involved in the May
incident from their command. The commander-in-chief of the army,
for example, the most influential military officer in the country, was
"promoted" to deputy permanent secretary, a position with much less
power. The supreme commander was transferred to the post of
inspector general. The First Army Region commanderthe most
powerful commander among the three armed forceswas transferred to
become commander of the Institute of the Army Academy. Then a
number of career officers were promoted to command posts. This
sweeping replacement of the top military positions spurred the Thai
military toward more professionalism for the first time in Thailand's
modern history.
From these incidents it is apparent that the role of the military elite
has changed significantly. Several "professional" officers at several
important posts appear not to be highly motivated by their own
political agenda or by personal gain, as compared to the earlier
generation of military leaders. Moreover, the military's influence in
general has been declining for some time. The most conclusive
evidence of the decline can be seen in the change in the military's
share of the total government budget. Traditionally the military had a
huge share of the budget. During 1982-84, for example, the Thai
military had the largest portion of the budget (Table 10). In the
subsequent six years (1985-90), its share dropped below that of the
Finance Ministry for the first time. In 1990, the military budget
slipped into third place. Not only has the military budget declined in
its ranking, but it has fallen as well in terms of percentage of total
government expenditure. Its share, for example, went steadily down
from 18.3 percent in 1982 to 15.6 percent in 1989 and then to an all-
time low of 11.9 percent in 1996. Moreover, despite Thailand's
impressive growth rate in the past decade, the military budget has not
kept up with the economic growth. In fact, the military budget tends to
lag behindfor example, its share as a percentage of GDP dropped from
a high of 3.4-4.1 percent between 1982 and 1987 to a low of 2.4-2.9
percent in 1988-94. Based on these budgetary figures, it appears that
the military's strong domination of governmental affairs has ended.

 Page 431
TABLE 10
The Thai Military Budget: 1982-97
Fiscal Defense Rate PercentagePercentage Rate of Rank of
year budget (in of GDP of total increasemilitary's
millions of budget (%) share
baht)
1982 29,384.5 4.1 18.3 - 1
1983 33,055.6 3.8 18.7 12.4 1
1984 35,926.7 3.9 18.7 8.7 1
1985 38,308.6 4.3 18.5 6.6 2
1986 38,866.2 3.8 18.3 1.5 2
1987 39,155.2 3.4 17.2 0.7 2
1988 41,170.7 2.9 16.9 5.2 2
1989 44,484.1 2.6 15.6 8.0 2
1990 52,632.5 2.4 15.7 18.3 3
1991 60,575.2 2.4 15.6 15.0 2
1992 69,272.9 2.5 13.2 14.3 2
1993 78,625.3 2.5 12.4 13.5 3
1994 85,423.9 2.4 12.6 8.6 3
1995 91,638.7 2.2 12.0 7.3 3
1996 100,603.0 2.2 11.9 9.8 3
1997 108,573.6 - 11.0 7.0 3
SOURCES: Thai Bureau of the Budget, Budget Summary for
1982-91; Thai Government House, Annual Budget
Legislation, 1985-97; Satha-Anan 1995; Ball 1995: 9.
NOTE: 1982-90 from Ball 1995, based on U.S. dollars;
1991-97 from NESDB 1995, based on Thai baht.

Toward Civilian Control

With the end of military domination, the civilian government has
increasingly been able to exert control over the activities previously
reserved for the military. In 1992, Prime Minister Anand's cabinet
approved a new plan for defense called the ''National Preparedness
Plan." It marked the beginning of a systematic approach by the
civilian

 Page 432
government to deal effectively and comprehensively with security
problems. In the past, the military was primarily responsible for
virtually every issue deemed important to national security. The
civilian bureaucracy, for its part, was responsible for all the economic
and social problems left by the military. There was no single
comprehensive plan that addressed all the important national security
issues. Coordination among the various agencies implementing
different security policies was clearly minimal.
The adoption of the National Preparedness Plan changed that
arrangement. The plan outlines the overall objectives, scope, and rules
for all government agencies in coping with the country's security
problems. Under the established guidelines, all agencies must fulfill
their specified obligations as related to the security conditions of the
state. They are to collaborate their efforts with the Ministry of
Defense but are also required to collaborate with the private sector, if
necessary, to achieve their objectives. The new plan also incorporates
two other major plans already in place for dealing with issues deemed
vital to the nation's well-being: the military's National Defense Policy
and the government's National Economic and Social Development
Plan. The National Defense Policy outlines general objectives in
defending the country, describes potential threats, and specifies
measures to counter the threats. The National Economic and Social
Development Plan deals with economic and social issues but also
undertakes special projects in areas determined to be sensitive to
subversion and aggression. By integrating the two plans into a single
master plan for defense, the civilian government is now able to set and
implement national security policy for the first time.
A Comprehensive Concept of Security
There has also been a shift in how security is conceptualized and
articulated by the elite. Although the concept of security has been
articulated by a number of specific Thai elites in the past, namely the
top military and civilian leaders, it was not done openly and formally.
Moreover, the emphasis would shift between the internal and external
dimensions, depending on the prevailing situation. When the elite was
faced with competition from other groups, for example, the emphasis
was placed on internal authority and control. When the country was
faced with communist subversion, the main focus was on countering
the communist threat by all means available. When the invasion of
Cambodia took place in 1979, the Thai leaders shifted emphasis to the
external threat from Vietnam. More important, the conceptualization
of security was a product of the immediate interests of small elite
groups in

 Page 433
the military, the foreign affairs office, the intellectual circle, or the
political parties. In many instances, their concepts of security were in
conflict with one another. In other cases, ideas of the group in power
were simply accepted by rival groups for a short period of time. The
military conceptualization of security in the 1940s to 1960s,
developed and promulgated without any significant contribution from
others, is a good example. Another example is the way security was
defined by the Chatichai government in dealing with the Cambodian
problem in the late 1980s, also without much input from others. In
both cases the results were disastrous. What has clearly been lacking
among the Thai elite is a durable, long-term consensus.
In 1994, however, came a change in how the elite articulated the
concept of security. The elite's notion of security was articulated
formally in the country's first defense white paper, entitled The
Defence of Thailand 1994. Most significant was that in this document
the diverse but elite group of 100 asserted that the country had four
national interests: maintenance of the state with independence,
sovereignty, and territorial integrity; the happiness and well-being of
the people; the growth and advancement of the nation as a whole, both
in economic and social terms, and the existence of an administrative
system that benefits the people; and honor and prestige in the
international community. The group of 100 leading professionals from
the military, the civil services, the business community, and other
private organizations were together for the first time, attempting to
develop a formal concept of security for the nation. In that formal
articulation, therefore, they attempted to include all the security
concerns and to encompass all segments of society and all aspects of
political, economic, and sociocultural issues. In many ways this
comprehensive concept of security represents the elite's response to
the rising demands of various emerging groups in a changing society.
Although the term national security refers to the traditional need to
defend the nation's independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity,
and status in the international arena, it concerns domestic factors as
wellin particular, it concerns the "happiness and well-being of the
people," the "growth and advancement of the nation," and the need to
have "an administrative system that benefits the people."
In this context, the elite's concept of security has been broadly
perceived and loosely defined. But that tendency is, in fact, rooted in
the nature of the Thai people. The Thais usually consider their country
to be unique in one important aspect: it is the only country in
Southeast Asia that was able to maintain its independence throughout
the colonial period. The fact that Thai society has continued to evolve,
for more than 700 years, without foreign values being imposed upon it
has a significant

 Page 434
influence on the Thai people. As a result, the Thais are generally
conscious of their independence, and the elite, in particular, are wary
about any threat to the country's independence. Issues regarded as
important to the security of the Thai society have, therefore, been
broadly perceived and loosely defined.
Nevertheless, the elite attempted to sharpen the concept of security by
focusing on five specific domains: political security, economic
security, social and psychological security, military security, and
scientific and technological security.

27 With respect to political security, the elite considers a democratic

form of government under a parliamentary system with the king as
head of state to be fundamental. Although this concept is typical,
continued efforts to make the system more democratic and responsive
are important new elements. In the elite's view of economic security,
sustainable economic development is vital. In particular,
implementation of the National Economic and Social Development
Plan is seen as essential to the development of the Thai economy. The
elite also states that the emphasis must now be placed on flexibility,
freedom, and choosing the right approaches in dealing with domestic
and international economic conditions to ensure that the economy
remains competitive in the international market. Furthermore, the elite
believes in looking for new markets, particularly in neighboring
countries. Among the economic issues perceived to be affecting the
country's well-being are rural poverty, unequal income distribution,
disparity among regions, a shortage in skilled labor, and
environmental harm caused by economic development.

This elite is also concerned with the effect of economic development,

urbanization, and rapid globalization on traditional Thai values.
Several Thai cultural values may be affected: kiatiphum (a deep sense
of independence, pride, and dignity); kreng jai (being considerate);
bun khun (being grateful); raksa nam jai (polite personality); alum
aluay (flexibility); wasana (accepting fate and religious beliefs);
esteem of education; sanuk (enjoyment); and esteem of achievement
(Komin 1995: 3). How Thailand can maintain these values while
incorporating other foreign values and without causing significant
conflicts in society is a key concern.
With respect to military security, the elite now believes in self-defense
but regards the use of military power as the last resort for the
protection of national security.28 Alliances or alignments with major
powers are believed to be less essential in the post-Cold War period.
In particular, links with the United States or China are not perceived
to be vitally important. The elite also thinks that significant changes in
the domestic, regional, and global security environment require the
Thai military to be more competent, better trained, and well equipped.

 Page 435
Professionalization of the military is therefore a must in responding to
the changing environment.
Finally, the current elite considers science and technology to be
critical in the nation's development. Appropriate knowledge and
technology must therefore be sought through importation or
indigenous development. Specific concerns in the realm of science
and technology include human resource development, information
technology, hardware technology, and organizational management.
The elite also thinks that the development of human resources and
information technology should be given high priority. The short-term
goals are to create skilled labor for industries and to use information
technology more effectively. In the long run, development based on
science and technology is expected to enhance the country's
competitiveness.
It is apparent from these new conceptions that the current elite is
trying to respond to challenges from other emerging groups. The
elite's thinking about national security is more systematic and
comprehensive now than in the past. Moreover, it articulates its
concept of security formally and openly. The elite has also initiated
new measures in its effort to operationalize its ideas. Reorganization
of policy making and streamlining of the decision-making apparatus
with the goal of institutionalizing civilian control are among its main
tasks. Whether or not this comprehensive approach to national
security issues will be fully accepted remains to be seen. Perhaps the
reinterpretation of security will ignite yet another round of intense
contestation. In any case, process by which national security policy is
made and implemented in Thailand has already changed significantly.
Post Cold War: Growing Concern with International Security
In Thailand, the elite's ideology often dictates the direction and
process of nation-building. Consequently, concepts such as security or
development depend on how the elite interprets and implements them.
Even in the midst of contestation the Thai elite has managed to create
a certain social consensus. Since the reign of King Chulalongkorn, the
elite has been most successful in establishing three national values:
the chart Thai (Thai nation), satsana Bhuddh (Buddhist religion), and
phra mahakasat (the monarchy). Also, an emphasis on development
and political participation has been emerging since the 1960s.
Consequently, the Thai state cannot be classified as a "weak state" as
defined by Buzan (1983: 67).
The Thai ruling elite, however, has been less successful in
establishing the authority necessary to govern the state effectively. In
other

 Page 436
words, the government's power is constantly challenged by various
competing groups. Under this prevailing condition, the ruling elite is
inherently weak and often concerned about the regime's security. In
constructing the concept of security, therefore, the central decision
makers are primarily driven by domestic considerations. When faced
with imminent threats from outside, however, the competing forces in
Thai society often rally to the defense of the state. The elite, in
particular, claims that the survival of the state is the ultimate goal.
There have been several examples of this conduct throughout modern
Thai history, particularly during the colonial period, the two world
wars, and the Indochina conflicts. At such times the state exhibits the
behavior of a unitary state in an anarchical international environment:
constantly concerned about survival, looking for alliances, balancing
relations, and seeking to gain more from others.
Thus the thinking and behavior of the central decision makers in
Thailand can be explained in some instances by systemic factors
according to the neorealist paradigm and in others by domestic factors
related to regime security. Neither paradigm, however, offers an
adequate explanation of the conception of security in Thailand over
the years. The state and its ruling elite have been faced with different
threats from within and without, creating a distinctive situation for a
country like Thailand.
There has been a significant change, however, in the central decision
makers' behavior since the end of the Cold War, and in particular
since the end of the conflict in Cambodia. Today, external military
threats to Thailand's survival are remote. Nor is there an active threat
from communist or minority insurgencies. Nevertheless, the elite is
evincing concern about the external security environment. The elite's
increasing concern about Thailand's border issues, maritime claims,
and resources is obvious. Concern over military power and political
influence is also discernible.
Territorial and Regional Security Concerns
For the Thai elite, maintaining independence, sovereignty, and
territorial integrity is considered the central security objective. Given
Thailand's area of 514,000 square kilometers located mostly in the
central plains of Southeast Asia, the elite often considers the country
to be vulnerable to land-based aggression. This fear, in fact, has had a
historical basis since the thirteenth century (Paribatra 1984: 28-46).
During the Ayudhaya period (1349-1767), for example, the Thai
capital was raided twice by Burmese warriors. In the post-World War
II period, Communist Vietnam and the wars in Indochina were
considered threats

 Page 437
to Thailand's independence and sovereignty. When Vietnam invaded
Cambodia in late 1978 and subsequently clashed with Thai troops
along the Thai-Cambodian border in 1980, the incidents validated the
Thai leaders' belief that Thailand's survival is directly challenged by
Vietnam (Chinwanno 1993: 3; Eiland 1983: 50-52). Moreover, with
Bangkok only 300 kilometers from the Cambodian border, Thai elites
in Bangkok are very sensitive to any changes in Cambodia. Thus, the
historical behavior of the Thai elite in countering these threats from
the western and eastern frontiers can be understood from a realist
perspective.
The threat from the western border, however, has not been considered
seriously by Thai leaders since the Chakri dynasty (1782-present).
And since the end of the Cambodian conflict in the late 1980s, the
threat from the eastern frontier has not been treated as serious either.
Nevertheless, the Thai elite is still concerned with unresolved border
issues between Thailand and its neighbors. The defense white paper,
for example, specifically states that "it is certain that Thailand will
face problems in the future concerning unclear borders" (Defence of
Thailand 1994: 16-17). The elite's concern is due largely to the
geostrategic fact that Thailand has some 5,000 kilometers of
borders2,401 kilometers with Myanmar, 1,745 kilometers with Laos,
789 kilometers with Cambodia, and 552 kilometers with Malaysiaand
some of these boundary lines have not been demarcated clearly. With
the end of the Cold War confrontation in the region, the elite believes
that unresolved border issues among these countries may resurface. In
fact, Thailand has already quarreled with all of its neighbors in recent
years over border issues. With Laos, for example, the disputed areas
include five villages in the two northeastern provinces and a small
island in the middle of the Mekong River. Thai security forces clashed
with Laotian troops several times in these areas in the late 1980s.
29 Thailand and Cambodia contest areas in three eastern provinces
and in the exclusive economic zone. Moreover, Thailand disputes the
five northern and central provinces with Myanmar. In the south, there
are four disputed areas that have not been resolved between Thailand
and Malaysia. Skirmishes have erupted occasionally along all these
contested borders except in the south, and some of the clashes have
been intense.

The boundary problems between Thailand and its neighbors have

been exacerbated by a number of border incidents involving illegal
entry, cross-border smuggling, trade in weapons, drug trafficking, and
prostitution.30 These activities concentrate mostly on the eastern,
northeastern, and western borders. On the western borders, illegal
entry is mostly related to the fighting in Myanmar. The armed
confrontation between the Karen nationalists (KNU) and the State
Law and Order Restoration

 Page 438
Council (SLORC) troops, for example, has pushed an estimated
60,000 people into Thailand over the years (Report on National
Interests and Threats on the Border Areas 1995). Moreover, drug
trafficking in the border areas by figures such as the warlord Khun Sa
has further complicated Thailand's relations with Myanmar and other
countries.
On the eastern border, the elite is increasingly concerned about the
Khmer Rouge, which still controls a number of areas along the Thai-
Cambodian border. Fighting between the Cambodian troops and the
Khmer Rouge breaks out periodically. Given the Thai government's
close ties with the Khmer Rouge over the years, the relationship
between Thailand and Cambodia is beset with mistrust and suspicion.
Moreover, border issues such as illegal weapons trade and labor
migration create further problems for Thailand. The illegal entry of
workers from Laos is another cause for concern. Drug trafficking and
ethnic conflicts on the Thai-Laos border create further problems for
Thailand.
On the southern border, religious differences in the five southern
provinces are less important in the thinking of the Thai elite today
than in earlier times. Now that communist activity has been
terminated, complications between Thailand and Malaysia have
lessened substantially. The Thai authorities in the area also appear to
be more sensitive toward Muslim minorities. But economic prosperity
in the Thai border towns has brought new concerns to the ruling elite:
prostitution, drug trafficking, and illegal trading activities have
increased. Some of the elite think that these problems will eventually
affect the relationship between Thailand and Malaysia. In recent
years, such border activities have indeed increased. In the elite's view,
they do not threaten the survival of Thailand but they do complicate
its relationship with others. Cross-border smuggling, drug trafficking,
and prostitution have damaged the country's image. Therefore, Thai
leaders believe that, in the long term, threats to Thailand will come
primarily from the border areas.
The Thai elite is also becoming attentive to the competition for
offshore resources and the conflicting maritime claims in the Asia-
Pacific region. Thai leaders fear that conflicts may arise from these
situations (Document on Submarine Procurement Program 1995: 1-
2). This was not the case in the 1980s when the Cambodian conflict
was the main concern for the Thai elite (Paribatra 1988b: 140-58).
Now that 95 percent of the country's trading activity depends on sea-
lanes and the country's economy increasingly depends on international
trade,

31 threats to the sea-lanes of communication have received more

attention. As a result, the government has initiated several new
security policies. The main policies are the National Preparedness
Plan of 253532 (1993), the National Defense Policy of 2535-2538
(1993-95), and the Development

 Page 439
for Added Security Plan of 2536 (1993). More important, the Thai
military has intensified its efforts to modernize the armed forces that
must deal with these border concerns. All these new developments
indicate that the elite has been responding to the changing external
security environment.
Centralization of Border Development
To deal more effectively with border problems, the civilian elite has
focused on creating a central institution for coordinating and
integrating development in the border areas. The institution devoted to
that purpose is the National Security Council (NSC). The NSC was
first established during the reign of King Rama VI (1910-27) under
the name of the Council for Defense of the Kingdom. Although its
main objective was to ensure the effectiveness of the Thai military in
defending the country, it was also charged with advising the king on
military matters. Under the National War Council Act of 1932, during
the reign of King Rama VII, the council's name was changed to the
National War Council. The new council was granted authority in
managing not only military affairs but also economic and political
affairs. During 1932-48, its name was changed to the National
Defense Council. Finally, the National Defense Council was
succeeded by the NSC under the National Security Act in 1959. The
NSC, under the Office of the Prime Minister, advises the cabinet on
national security policy. Its activities, in fact, cover a wide range
including politics, military affairs, economics, social affairs, science
and technology, and energy and environment.
In the past, however, when the military was dominant, the NSC did
not play a significant role in formulating and implementing security
policy. Its role consisted largely of articulating an official concept of
national security in accordance with the military's thinking. The
cabinet's decision on February 4, 1992, however, changed all that: the
cabinet specified that the NSC is to coordinate all development
projects related to security, including those programs directed by the
military in the border areas. The NSC is also required to make all
security-related development programs concur with the National
Economic and Social Development Plan. This means that the NSC
must work closely with the National Economic and Social
Development Board (NESDB). In addition, the cabinet's decision now
requires the NSC to coordinate its efforts with the private sector.
Finally, the NSC is to evaluate all these projects for the cabinet.
Although the cabinet's decision certainly increased the NSC's
effectiveness, the most significant change to the NSC occurred in
1993. On December 29, 1993, the NESDB called for a coordinated
plan for

 Page 440
security-related programs and other economic development projects in
all 30 provinces on the borders. All of the projects' budget allocations,
including those for the military, are now to be coordinated through the
NESDB. The NESDB, in turn, works closely with the NSC under the
National Coordinating Center for Preparedness. This change in the
budget process gives the NSC the power to integrate all domestic
programs for security. In short, the elite's intention to deal with the
border problems more effectively is clear. More important, it is a
systematic approach that institutionalizes civilian control and
streamlines the decision-making apparatus. In addition, the elite has
given the central agency, the NSC, a much-needed toolcontrol over
budgets and support from expertswith which to attack the problems.
Whether or not the council's performance will match these intentions
remains to be seen.
Development of Military Capabilities
The elite's response to uncertainty in the sea-lanes of communication
is even more apparent. In particular, the military initiated a new
defense policy aimed at comprehensive improvement of the capability
of the armed forces. The objectives of the new defense policy are as
follows:
1. Restructure the armed forces so that they are more compact and
have professional personnel with modern weapons and equipment,
thus enabling them to guarantee the country's independence,
sovereignty, and national interests.
2. Improve the reserve and conscription systems so that they are
more suitable for the new conditions. At the same time, increase
cooperation with allies.
3. Revise the curricula of all military educational institutions so that
they take into account the economic, social, and political changes
 occurring in the country.
4. Promote the role of the armed forces in the country's
development, including the protection of economic interests both
on land and at sea.
5. Raise the morale of lower-ranking personnel by improving
welfare and providing more vocational training so that they are able
to earn a livelihood after demobilization (Defence of Thailand
1994: 20).
Not only does the new defense policy aim to deal more effectively
with the external environment; it also shifts the Thai military's focus
from counterinsurgency to a conventional warfare capability. The first

 Page 441
priority is to develop a more compact and effective armed forces with
modern military equipment; then attention will focus on
improvements in the reserve and conscription systems, education, and
welfare.
The main emphasis, however, is on modern equipment.

33 The Royal Thai Army (RTA), for example, aims to be ''compact in

size, light, and have destructive power." This will enable it to respond
quickly to various contingencies, particularly in the border areas. The
RTA's new weapons include more main battle tanks and light tanks
such as M-48A5s and M-60A3s from the United States. Self-propelled
guns with a greater range, such as the M-109 (155 mm), are currently
being imported. The RTA is also improving its battlefield surveillance
and night operations equipment. All these weapons are considered
important to meet the country's new security needs.

As for the Royal Thai Navy (RTN), its modernization programs

emphasize developing greater capabilities to protect territorial waters,
maritime natural resources, industrial energy sources, and the sea-
lanes of communications. More modern surface warships and a small
fleet of submarines are being given serious consideration.34 New
Naresuan-class and Knox-class frigates will be commissioned within
a few years in addition to the four Chinese-built Chao Phraya-class
frigates and two Kramronsin-class corvettes. More capable missiles
and air defense systems such as the Sea Sparrow ship-to-air missiles
and the LW-108 and STIR radar systems are being acquired. The most
significant addition to the RTN's capability is the 11,400-ton
Chakkrinareubet light aircraft and helicopter carrier commissioned in
1997. This carrier will essentially transform the RTN from a coastal
navy into a maritime navy with significant striking power.35 The RTN
also seeks to acquire a submarine capability. The initial proposal was
for two small diesel-powered submarines at an estimated cost of $560-
$680 million. Although the RTN deferred the proposal just before it
was to be submitted to the cabinet in 1995,36 it is quite likely to make
the request in the future.
The Royal Thai Air Force (RTAF) emphasizes its modern fighter
aircraft inventory: additional jets with higher performance capability
such as the new F-16s and F/A-18s will be acquired.37 The
acquisition of airborne early warning systems such as the E-2
Hawkeyes is also planned. The RTAF is also upgrading its air defense
systems and electronic surveillance.
In short, the Thai elite has responded to the uncertainties of the
regional environment in a typical wayby building up its military
capabilities. And, in general, the military capabilities it has been
acquiring are fairly impressive, especially the new acquisitions of the
Royal Thai Navy. The Thai military's past performance in warfare,
however,

 Page 442
particularly with neighboring countries, is far less impressive.
Whether the military can fully utilize its new capability is still a big
question. In the end, the Thai military elite realizes that it can never
develop a truly powerful military force. The country imposes too
many constraints: a declining military budget, weak support from the
civilian government and the general public, and, more important, the
lack of specific objectives among the military elite. The severe
financial crisis that struck Thailand in 1997 has resulted in substantial
cutbacks in defense expenditures. Many procurement plans have been
shelved. Even otherwise, domestic and international constraints have
compelled Thailand to cooperate with other nations in solving
regional security concerns.
Regional and International Cooperation
In the post-Cold War era, the Thai elite has begun to place serious
emphasis on good relations with neighboring states and other regional
countries. Today the government places greater importance on
relations with China and on economic cooperation. There have also
been increased efforts to promote economic relations with India and
Russia. But the most serious emphasis has been on promoting good
relations with Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar for the first
time in decades. In the past, the Thai military elite pushed the idea of
"Suwanaphum" (golden land), which implied an imperialistic attitude
toward Indochina (Wood and Wheeler 1990: 18-19). Nevertheless,
that idea mainly reflected the thinking of certain leaders and was
motivated mostly by their desire for personal economic gain. Today
more emphasis is placed on economic cooperation with and
investment activities in these former Indochina countries. The
campaign began officially with the policy of the Chatichai
government to "turn battlefields into marketplaces." In recent years, as
we have seen, Thai officials have also increased their efforts to solve
border-related issues with neighbors.
In accord with the new interest in regional and international
cooperation, more consideration has been given to international and
regional organizations. In 1993, Thailand became a member of the
Nonaligned Movement. The official reason given was that Thailand
can benefit in its dealings with other countries by being a member of
the movement. In subsequent years, it has become involved in hosting
the first ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in 1994, the Fifth ASEAN
Summit in 1995, and the first Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) in 1996.
Moreover, Thailand has given high priority to cooperation within
ASEAN, particularly since the Cambodia conflict.
Changes in Thailand's alliances with superpowers such as the United
States are also evident. Alignments and alliances have always

 Page 443
been an important element in the elite's approach to security. Now that
the conflicts with neighboring countries have ended, the elite believes
it will not gain significantly from being heavily reliant upon major
powers such as the United States and China. Although the elite still
intends to continue its alliance with certain powers, Thailand will not
be as accommodating in those relations as before. Thailand's criticism
of the United States over the missile attack on Baghdad in July 1993
and Thailand's 1995 decision to reject a U.S. request to station supply
ships in the Gulf of Thailand reflect this new thinking (Snitwongse
1994: 151).
Conclusion: New Forces, New Definitions
The process of making and implementing Thailand's national security
policies has historically been dominated by a small elite. The Thai
core values, under the label of national security, began to take root in
the mid-nineteenth century when the king and the aristocracy
established the concept of nation, religion, and kingship. Under the
domination of the military and the bureaucracy, the Thai conception
of security was highly influenced by militaristic-authoritarian
ideology for almost 60 years. In the 1990s, however, there has been a
significant change in Thai national security practice. Although the
three core values remain largely intact, security has become
multidimensional: increasingly the notion incorporates socioeconomic
issues, as demanded by the emerging new forces in society.
The elite's conception of security has often been challenged by
competing groups in Thai society, occasionally with violent
consequences. The competition has largely been among the traditional
elite groups: the royalists, the aristocracy, the military, the
bureaucracy. In recent times, however, new forcesincluding the
civilian politicians, the intellectuals, the urban middle class, and
various interest groupshave joined in the contestation. Today the
contest centers on the interpretation and implementation of key
concepts such as the Thai nation, the system of government, the
authority of a particular group, and the regime's legitimacy.
When faced with an immediate threat from inside, the thinking and
behavior of the Thai elite are driven by domestic factors relating to
political authority and regime stability. When faced with an imminent
threat from outside, however, the competing forces in society often
rally to the defense of the state. Then, the goals of a unitary
statesurvival, alliance, and cooperation according to a commonly
defined national interestcan be invoked to explain the elite's concept
of security. At the present time, in the absence of both internal
subversion and immediate

 Page 444
external aggression, the central decision makers are concerned about
the state's border problems and regional security. Thus they have
strengthened military self-defense by modernizing the armed forces,
while adjusting alliances and initiating new approaches to regional
cooperation. Although it would not be entirely correct to use systemic
factors to explain the Thai elite's thinking and behavior at the present
time, it appears that the Thai state is becoming more responsive to
regional conditions and, perhaps, to the international environment. To
what degree this is so, however, remains to be seen when the next
round of contestation over the concept of security arises in Thai
domestic politics. Predicting who will emerge as the leaders in Thai
politics has proved to be, as some scholars put it "the most
problematic" for most observers (Neher and Marlay 1995: 45). It
seems clear, therefore, that the conception of Thai security cannot be
explained by a single theoretical approach.

 Page 445

14
Vietnam
Struggle And Cooperation
Kim Ninh
At present our advance is gaining momentum, at the same time we have
also come under pressure from many directions.... Unlike in past times, today
the hostile forces have many means by which to influence our country with the
aim of driving us onto the capitalist road or steering us into their orbit, thus
making us dependent on them. For this reason, external relations activities
should hold fast to the two aspects of cooperation and struggle in order to
develop and protect the economy, to defend national security, and to preserve
and develop the national cultural traditions and characteristics.
LE QUANG THANH, 1994

Le Quang Thanh's analysis of Vietnam's security situation, which

appeared in the Communist Review, the official journal of the
Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP), underlines the dramatic changes
that have enveloped the country in the last decade and focuses on the
dilemmas facing the Vietnamese Communist leaders today. Since the
adoption of the strategy of doi moi (renovation) in 1986, Vietnam has
withdrawn from Cambodia, mended relations with China and the
United States, and become a member of the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 1995. These developments have returned
Vietnam fully to the fold of the international community, allowing it
to concentrate on economic development, which has become a
primary national goal. The country's continued steady economic
growth, rising foreign investment, and controlled level of inflation
have led to noticeable improvements in the standard of living for
many Vietnamese. The difference between 1986 and 1996 is indeed
remarkable, but such a


 Page 446
dramatic turnaround can obscure the extent to which one of the oldest
and most cohesive communist parties in the world had to undergo
elemental change and, in the process, reconceptualize several of its
key beliefs, goals, and policies, including those in the area of security.
Dramatic changes in the international environment, its own policy of
renovation, growing concern with regime legitimacy, and a host of
domestic problems associated with economic liberalization are
compelling Vietnam to rethink its security. A new construction of
security is emerging, but there also are elements of continuity. The
ethnonationally constructed Vietnamese state continues to be the
referent of security. There is little or no significant contestation of the
nation-state, although its socialist identity is becoming increasingly
untenable, forcing the VCP to reconceptualize socialism and to
become more concerned with the defense of the "socialist fatherland."
Vietnam has long been accustomed to viewing its immediate regional
and global environment as a hostile place; to perceiving its survival as
being continually threatened; and in the final analysis, to relying on
itself to ensure its survival. Socialism, the threat from the United
States, and the historical threat from China provided the ideological
framework and the substantive context for this worldview, which is
close to realism. That realist interpretation of the world and Vietnam's
place in it, however, is now increasingly tempered by an acceptance
of an interdependent region and world and an acknowledgment of the
benefits of participation in regional and global cooperative
arrangements. That in turn has led to the elaboration of a new
"struggle-cooperation" strategya more flexible approach to ensuring
Vietnam's security and prosperity in a changing era.
Political survival continues to be of concern, but economic growth is
also accorded high priority. The latter is viewed as vital to ensure the
security of Vietnam and its position in Southeast Asia as well as to
legitimate the VCP's monopoly of political power and satisfy the
economic aspirations of the people. However, liberalization of the
Vietnamese national economy and its integration into the global
capitalist system both deemed necessary to promote economic
growthpose several new challenges to the Vietnamese state and
society. The tension between the VCP's commitment to continuing its
monopoly of political power and the demands and consequences of
economic renovation has given rise to internal security concerns
focused on regime survival, challenges to the identity of the state, and
socioeconomic grievances issuing in large measure from the growing
disparity in income distribution, especially between the urban and
rural areas. The effort of the United States and the West to propagate
democracy and human rights as universal values and the attempt to
attach political conditions to economic intercourse

 Page 447
have heightened Vietnam's concern with regime survival, connecting
its internal and international security concerns.
As it investigates the changing conception of security in Vietnam, this
chapter will document the changes as well as the reasons for them.
Because history weighs heavily on the thinking of Vietnamese
leaders, it begins with a discussion of the impact of history on the
practice of security in Vietnam.
The Legacy of History
The defining characteristic of Vietnamese politics has long been a
sense of having to construct a nation-state in hostile surroundings. To
survive the geopolitical accident of being the small neighbor of the
overwhelming cultural, political, and military force to the north in the
form of China, Vietnam through the centuries has responded with a
mix of strategies in its efforts to maintain independence. Vietnam's
ability to adopt and indigenize sophisticated Chinese institutions and
practices ensured its survival, but the preservation of a distinct state
and Vietnamese national identity required constant rebellion against
Chinese domination, particularly during the numerous times that
China occupied Vietnam and sought to turn it into an integral part of
the Chinese empire. This complex love-hate, dependent-independent
relationship with China was a fundamental factor in the Vietnamese
conception of security.
The struggle against China was part of a broader condition of having
to survive in a hostile environment and against great odds. Vietnam's
southward expansion was a response to the northern Chinese threat as
well as a consequence of an aggressively expanding state throughout
its history. In the process, the powerful Cham state that once inhabited
central Vietnam ultimately disappeared; Vietnam gained its southern
territory from the Khmers as late as the nineteenth century. In short,
the legacy of history and geopolitics left Vietnam with the view that it
would be able to maintain its existence and independence only with
hard work and sheer force of will. The strong sense of self, however,
was accompanied by deep ambivalence about the adoption of foreign
ways that had been necessary for the construction of the nation-state.
The experience of French colonialism contributed to this ambivalence,
which was evident in the spirited intellectual debate in the 1930s and
1940s over what constituted national identity and culture (Pham Van
Tho 1994: 52).
By the early 1940s, the pathetic remains of imperial power, waning
French colonialism, and brutal Japanese occupation had all combined
to underline the weakness of the Vietnamese nation and the
nonexistence of what could be termed a Vietnamese state. Marxism-
Leninism

 Page 448
appealed to so many Vietnamese during this period precisely because
it offered a worldview that eased the sense of national weakness by
imputing a larger global force at work and, more important, by
providing a model for party organization and for a new state. The
search for community, for an organized structure, was feverish in
Vietnam because, as the historian Alexander Woodside has suggested,
the colonial system had exposed so starkly the weakness of the
traditional structure of organization (Woodside 1976).

1 In the Vietnamese case, therefore, the construction of the state was

seen as the key to maintaining the national essence, which had always
needed protection and which was particularly vulnerable in the years
before the August Revolution.

Vietnam's struggle for survival did not end with the conclusion of
World War II. France's adamant demand in 1945 for the return of its
colonies in Indochina, and American support for its European ally,
taught Vietnam a bitter lesson. Even with military victory over the
French in 1954, the Vietnamese Communists, under pressure from
both the Soviet Union and China, who wanted to placate the United
States, were forced to accept the division of their country. In the end,
big-power politics always took precedence. Vietnam's small size
meant that it had always to be flexible to survive, and the lesson was
that no one could be trusted to guarantee Vietnam's survivalnot the
Western statesmen who proclaimed new political ideals in a new
world and not the communists who promised international
brotherhood. The realist paradigm captured Vietnam's situation well.
In an essentially anarchic world where the big powers had the
capability to define the international system for the smaller states and
were much more willing to come to terms among themselves than to
be guided by notions of equality and fair play, small states such as
Vietnam had do all they could to ensure their own survival, from
diplomacy to balancing and engaging in military struggle.
Pre-'doi moi' Security Views
In the Vietnamese Communist Party's struggle for power throughout
the 1930s and the 1940s, it confronted not only repressive colonial
authorities but also other Vietnamese nationalist parties with very
different views of how an independent Vietnamese state should be
constructed. The beginning of the anti-French struggle in 1946 threw
the society into chaos, allowing the VCP to pursue a brutally
systematic elimination of its domestic rivals without having to resort
to political maneuvering. In response to the contentious internal and
external environment in which the party managed to achieve its
dominant position and the need to prepare for the eventual
establishment of a

 Page 449
socialist state, the VCP's policies in key areas such as culture and land
reform became increasingly restrictive and orthodox during the nine
years of the anti-French struggle. The emphasis on an explicitly
socialist ideology and centralizing, authoritarian institutions were
deemed necessary to ensure adequate material support for the war
effort, to engender a new nationalist culture for the new socialist state,
and to contain opposition to the VCP's agenda.

Under the VCP's leadership, North Vietnam officially became a

socialist state in 1954. The socialist organization of the state and the
move toward a centralized economy quickly generated a gap between
the VCP and a significant number of intellectuals who had come of
age in the chaotic but intellectually inquisitive atmosphere of the
1930s and 1940s. Though they also believed in the central importance
of the state and in firm rule, these intellectuals held different views
about the nature of the Vietnamese state and about how invasive state
control should be. When the VCP suppressed this brief but intense
moment of intellectual questioning in 1958, it effectively ended the
inclusive tendency of the Vietnamese revolution and forced the
intellectual movement underground.3
The subsequent two decades of warfare that turned Vietnam into a
battleground for the opposing worldviews of the United States and the
Soviet Union bolstered the socialist framework. The U.S.-backed
South Vietnam presented the VCP with a formidable domestic rival,
underlining the need for organizational control and firm leadership. In
support of the U.S. effort to combat communism, many countries in
the region also sent troops to Vietnam. Even in instances involving
leading members of the socialist bloc whose common ideology should
have guaranteed Vietnam's interests, Vietnamese Communist leaders
have found themselves subdued by the demands of big-power politics.
The division of the country in half in 1954 was but one example. In
this context, the development of a strong us-versus-them mentality
within the VCP was hardly surprising.
Given its weak position in the East-West struggle and within the
socialist bloc itself, Hanoi sought to manipulate the struggle to its best
advantage externally while maintaining firm control over its
population through a dense state structure fully under the VCP's
command. Over the years, this gave rise to the belief that although
skillful and flexible politics was key to Vietnam's survival and
eventual achievement of national unification, the country must above
all safeguard its own interests and maintain a high level of vigilance.
Despite the internationalist tone adopted by the VCP throughout the
Vietnam War, suspicion permeated its dealings with the outside
world, including its relations with other socialist countries. To ensure
that Vietnam was ready at all

 Page 450
times for any exigency, the government adopted a comprehensive
strategy requiring that the society itself always be on the alert and
always be under close observation. External security threats and the
need to control society were tightly interwoven.
Suspicion and vigilance were further heightened by military conflicts
with Cambodia and China in the late 1970s and through the 1980s, as
well as by the U.S. trade embargo and ASEAN's effort to force
Vietnam to rescind its position in Cambodia. A statement by the
minister of interior in 1982, typical of the period, echoed Vietnam's
apprehensions:
After the failure in the war to invade our country at the southwestern and
northern borders, the expanding, hegemonic China colludes even more
with imperialist United States and other reactionary forces. On the one
hand, they continue to move military forces to the northern border of our
country, generating military conflict in many areas in order to encroach on
more land, maintain the usual anxiety at the border, and create the danger
that a war of invasion can occur in different forms; on the other hand, they
strive to destroy our people's effort to build socialism, keenly driving our
country's destruction on many fronts, from many angles, through many
forms and many means extremely dangerous and conniving in order to
destabilize our country's political, economic and social situation, making
us weak so as to generate chaos and when there is an opportunity, they will
move to invade our country. (Pham Hung 1982: 24-25)

From the premise that its enemies were powerful and that they sought
to destroy Vietnam by any means available, the Vietnamese socialist
state extended its definition of national security to encompass
virtually all nooks and crannies not only of its international relations
but also of the society itself. Social vices, economic mishaps,
mismanagement, and dissenting voices among the intelligentsia and
the rank and file of the party were construed as the work of the
external enemies. The Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, the large number
of overseas Vietnamese, and the ethnic insurgency represented by
FULRO (Front Unifié de Libération des Races Opprimées) also were
considered threats to Vietnamese security because in many cases they
were viewed as being proxies in American and Chinese efforts to
destroy Vietnam. During this period, the media constantly referred to
"reactionaries disguised as priests," and the intellectuals in the south
as well as in the overseas Vietnamese community were castigated for
being "agents of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency" who were
plotting to destabilize the revolution (Amnesty International 1990: 20,
22). A number of prominent southern writers also were arrested.
Into the 1980s, therefore, Vietnam's view of security remained
externally oriented toward a hostile international environment. For the

 Page 451
VCP, the regime was the state whose survival was threatened, and in
this context, domestic politics was mobilized to react to the external
situation. The fury of the security pronouncements were at their
highest in the early 1980s, as if to compensate for the slackened
vigilance evident after national reunification. Firm control was
reiterated, and demands similar to those occurring during the wars
against France and the United States were made on the population.
There were, however, significant differences between the situation
during the Vietnam War and that after unification in 1975. For one
thing, during the Vietnam War total mobilization of the population,
encapsulated in the brilliant military tactician General Vo Nguyen
Giap's strategy of a ''people's war," was possible because the physical
and spiritual threats to the population were so immediate. The
"people's war" was not simply a military strategy but an abbreviated
description of the total psychological impact of living through a time
when wartime hardships were the norm rather than the exception. The
military conflicts with Cambodia and China in the late 1970s and
early 1980s simply did not have the same urgency and consequence
for the whole population. Thus, in the mid-1980s Vietnam's security
situation was uneasily defined this way: "The country does not face a
large-scale war now [but it] does not have complete peace [either]....
[It] is now in a situation in which there are both war and peace in
certain proportions" (Vo Nhan Tri 1988: 340).
Also significantly different in the mid-1980s was the fact that a
unified socialist Vietnam had to contend with a still-capitalist south.
Ideas and practices far removed from the clearly defined socialist
framework exerted their influence over the north, undermining the
notion that the party's way was the only option. Meanwhile, the
Communist government's harsh treatment of the south quickly ended
the euphoria that had greeted the convoys of northern soldiers entering
Saigon in 1975. Even in the face of firm socialist authority, the
southern characteristic of blunt speaking did much to emphasize the
gap between the two halves of the country structurally, ideologically,
and culturally. Over time, this southern view began to find echoes in
the more moderate and inclusive segment of the revolution in the
north that had been driven underground in late 1950s and that now
helped to temper the state's more radical and explicitly socialist
policies.
'Doi moi' and Changing Security Views
A decade after the attainment of the long-cherished goal of national
unification, the Vietnamese Communist leadership found the fruits of

 Page 452
national unification to be elusive. The economy was sliding toward
chaos, exacerbated by an unfortunate string of natural disasters.
Military engagement in Cambodia and border skirmishes with China
further drained Vietnam's meager resources. The U.S. trade embargo
and international isolation forced Vietnam to rely mostly on other
socialist states for aid and trade, but those states were increasingly
preoccupied with their own dramatic domestic upheavals. When other
socialist countries' attempts at structural reform failed, the eventual
result was the disintegration of socialism and of the states constructed
in its name in East Germany, the Soviet Union, and Eastern Europe.
China, having experienced tremendous growth after a decade of
economic reform, faced a severe reminder of unresolved social and
political fissures in the 1989 student demonstrations at Tiananmen
Square. The Chinese government's bloody crackdown was disturbing
to the Vietnamese leadership. Meanwhile, the ASEAN states' stable
and high rates of growth increasingly forced Vietnam to confront an
alternative model of development much closer to home.
Faced with the stark reality of failure and cognizant of the fact that
socialist states elsewhere also were finding it necessary to undergo
changes, the VCP moved to adopt the strategy of doi moi, or
renovation, at the Sixth Party Congress in 1986. The desperate need
for change was clear; top party leader Truong Chinh referred to doi
moi as a life-and-death requirement. Yet what would doi moi really
mean to a system that had long seen itself as the repository of the
national essence and a loyal adherent of socialism? What was the right
mix of economic and sociopolitical reforms, in light of the stark
difference between the Chinese and the Soviet examples?
To overcome its developmental impasse, Vietnam had to harness the
domestic potential fully while aggressively pursuing crucial foreign
investment. In particular, the agricultural sector had to be able to stand
on its own. Toward this end, state control over cooperatives and land
use was eased, resulting in the spectacular rise of Vietnam in early
use was eased, resulting in the spectacular rise of Vietnam in early
1990s as the world's third-largest rice exporter. Private commercial
activities flourished, and foreign investment began to arrive. All these
developments, however, were accompanied by intense ideological
discussions that revealed fear and ambivalence as well as hope and the
desire for openness.

4 For so long, constant vigilance had been required for the state under
siege to guarantee its physical survival as well as its own sense of
cohesiveness. That vigilant stance had to be relaxed in order for
Vietnam to begin the process of integration into the regional and
international community.

However, internal developments continue to be firmly linked to the

 Page 453
external situation. Historical distrust of foreign influences in
Vietnamese affairs is evident in the obsession with notions of "beyond
containment" (vuot tren ngan chan) and "peaceful evolution" (dien
bien hoa binh), which are seen as attempts by the capitalist world to
undermine the existence and growth of the remaining socialist states
like Vietnam through a wide range of political, economic, cultural,
and ideological measures. The American penchant for linking aid with
human rights and democratic reforms is a vivid example of such a
strategy in Vietnamese eyes (Quang Loi 1990: 82-84). This seemingly
strident view of security, however, acknowledges the absence of an
imminent military threat and the need to respond to the challenges
posed by liberal political, economic, social, and cultural threats.
Moreover, it recognizes the need to examine the nature of communist
parties and the problems generated by the process of renovation in
order to understand the reasons for the collapse of socialist states
elsewhere (Tran Trong 1990: 108). The Vietnamese assessment of
communist parties in Eastern Europe, for example, is particularly
frank in noting their abuses of power and their failure to accommodate
popular grievances.

Reconceptualizing Socialism
The recognition of serious problems with the old socialist model is
evident in the recent many and diverse attempts to reconceptualize the
international situation, Vietnam's foreign relations, and even the
fundamental tenets of Marxism-Leninism in an effort to go beyond the
dogmatic ideological framework that guided Vietnamese development
for so long. Reconceptualization also strives to provide theoretical
legitimacy to the increasingly market-oriented economic development
and the aggressive foreign investment strategy being pursued by the
VCP while the party continues to insist that it is leading the country
resolutely down the socialist path. Even Ho Chi Minh's thoughts have
been resurrected in support of the development of a unique
Vietnamese brand of socialism. At the Seventh Party Congress in July
1991, the party's platform and regulations for the first time enshrined
the idea that "the Party takes Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh
Thought to be the ideological base and the compass for its actions" (as
quoted in Song Thanh 1992: 8). In a world in which the first country
of socialism no longer existed and China could not lead Vietnam
because of the difficult and complex relations between the two
countries, "Ho Chi Minh Thought" was the VCP's attempt, in the
words of the director of the Ho Chi Minh Institute, to "assert the
maturity in independent thinking and self-mastery of our party, [and
to] affirm the value of Ho Chi Minh Thought in the struggle for peace,
for national independence, and

 Page 454
for democracy and socialism in the contemporary era (Song Thanh
1992: 8).
Rejecting the road mistakenly taken in other socialist states,
proponents of an independent ideological course in Vietnam argue
that the final form of socialism itself is unclear and still under
formation. Therefore, although "moving toward socialism is an
objective necessity," the official ideological stance recognizes that a
much longer period of transition to socialism is needed for an
underdeveloped country such as Vietnama period in which a certain
amount of national capitalistic development is required (Truong Mau
1995: 63). The vagueness of this ideological position on socialism,
coupled with the emphasis on flexibility, practicality, and creativity in
responding to what is seen as Vietnam's rare opportunity to catch up
with the rest of Southeast Asia, provides the party with the wide
latitude it needs to focus on national construction without abandoning
the claim to socialist purity. The Vietnamese continue to have
enormous genuine respect for Ho Chi Minh, and the ideology of a
dead but revered father of the nation is always much easier to defend
and to utilize creatively than the discredited ideology of a world that
no longer exists.

The emphasis on Ho Chi Minh Thought also is intended to address the

rising discontent among prominent intellectuals and party members.
Party purification, the need to separate the party apparatus from the
state structure, and high regard for intellectuals, for example, are
claimed to have been issues of concern for Ho Chi Minh (Tran Dinh
Huynh 1993). Thus by coming back to Ho Chi Minh, the party is
justifying its right to rule by recalling the mythical moral universe of
the August Revolution and the more specific and emotion-charged
appeal of nationalist construction.7 The official elevation of Ho Chi
Minh Thought to the pantheon of orthodox socialist ideology is, in
fact, a claim that Vietnamese nationalist socialism is derived from a
source untainted by the extremes of socialist development elsewhere.
Regional Cooperation
As noted earlier, Vietnam's desire to overcome its developmental
impasse led to a dramatic reorientation of its economic, political, and
social agendas. Vietnam is increasingly following the model of one-
party, state-controlled capitalist development that has been deployed
successfully in post-World War II Asia. The most noteworthy shift in
Vietnam's conduct of external relations and its views of security in the
past decade has been the reorientation from its intense preoccupation
with big powers, particularly China, to a more balanced position in
which regional cooperation with other Southeast Asian states plays a
significant role.

 Page 455
Long forced to play on the international stage a role far larger than its
size, power, or importance would warrant, Vietnam is finally coming
face to face with its true position in Asia. The turn toward Southeast
Asia is fortuitous for Vietnam in many respects: the region is one of
the most economically dynamic in the world and is politically stable.
Vietnam can certainly benefit from the technological know-how and
the regional surplus of capital for investment, and it can emulate the
one-party systems employed by several Southeast Asian countries.
For all the weaknesses inherent in the organization of ASEAN, at the
very least it is a viable institution bringing the Southeast Asian states
together so that they are in a better position to balance the other more
dominant powers in Asia, namely Japan and China. Diversification of
its economic and political relations is the purpose underlying
Vietnam's participation in a number of other multilateral institutions
as well, such as APEC (Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation).
Clearly, regional cooperation serves several purposes from the
Vietnamese perspective.
Finally, Vietnam's reorientation toward Southeast Asia has an identity
component. What has long been dominant in the Vietnamese self-
assessment is the extent to which it is not Chinese (and to a lesser
extent not French), but now Vietnamese intellectuals are beginning to
rediscover the nation's roots in other terms.

8 Although much of the interest in ASEAN continues to focus on the

economic dimension, there is a growing desire to explore historical,
cultural, ethnic, and religious connections with Southeast Asia.9 That
desire is suggestive of the attempt to construct a more meaningful and
balanced Vietnamese identityone in which a relativist rather than an
essentialist view of culture is dominant and one in which influences
other than Chinese or French can be given their proper places. As
such, it can be argued that Vietnamese receptiveness to constraints
associated with regional institution-building go beyond a purely
instrumental motive and also reflect a deeper desire to establish
linkages with the region in more emotional terms. Given that the
Southeast Asian states also emphasize strong state control and
noninterference in each other's internal affairs, it is relatively simple
for Vietnam to accept the regional imperatives at the moment while it
continues to pursue stable growth and a more confident definition of
nation and state.

Current Security Thinking

Although still seemingly strident and ideologically orthodox, both the
dire warnings of "peaceful evolution" and the emergence of Ho Chi
Minh Thought are aspects of the new security thinking in Vietnam.
This new thinking takes into account the global trend emphasizing
economic

 Page 456
progress over strictly military concerns and argues that Vietnam must
establish an independent course in both ideology and developmental
policy in the aftermath of the collapse of socialism.
The threat of "peaceful evolution" is often articulated in the army's
newspaper and journal. Those articulating this threat argue that
although global military conflicts are less likely, insidious efforts by
Vietnam's enemies to destroy the country from within through quietly
destructive means such as human rights, "multipartyism,"
depoliticization of the army, and religious and ethnic revivalism have
become more significant. The Foreign Ministry, however, paints a
more benign view of the international environment. As Deputy
Foreign Minister Nguyen Dy Nien put it in 1990, the world is now
seeing "a primary interest in economic development" and "the
strength of a country is measured mainly by its economic strength and
cultural values." Therefore, ''war is no longer an effective way to
settle conflicts in international relations. Of course, at times countries
still resort to military force to achieve definite objectives and
schemes. However, a country always has to pay for such an action and
must carefully calculate to avoid a war that might bankrupt its
development plan and make it inferior to other nations" (Pham Van
Tho 1994: 52). The remark certainly conjures up the bitter lesson of
Vietnamese military involvement in Cambodia, but what is more
important here is that the larger linkage between the political and
economic realms and between internal and external dimensions is
viewed in the context of global interdependence.
These two different approaches to international developments led to
some conflict in the early years of Vietnam's effort at renovation.
Given the official strategy of renovation, the army feared that its role
might be diminished not only by the primary status of diplomacy but
also by a different and possibly conflicting assessment of the
international situation and national defense.
10

Whatever discord might have existed between the army's views and
the Foreign Ministry's approach to international relations and national
defense seems to have been resolved, however. As the first half of the
1990s unfolded, the party reiterated the connection between foreign
relations and national defense. As General Secretary Do Muoi stated
in his delivery of the Seventh Party Central Committee's political
report at the Midterm National Party Conference (on January 20,
1994),
While concentrating our efforts on national construction, we must not
neglect even for a moment the task of defending the fatherland;
safeguarding national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity, and
security; firmly maintaining sociopolitical stability and the socialist
orientation of development.... We must continue to promote the imple-

 Page 457
mentation of an independent, sovereign, open, diversified, and
multilateralized foreign policy, maximize similarities, and limit
differences, thereby creating favorable conditions for national construction
and defense. (Dinh Nho Liem 1994: 70)
A more unified view of national security is emerging to consolidate
the dramatic gains that the VCP has managed to achieve in the
international and domestic arenas in the last decade. The common
starting point is that the world has truly entered a phase in which the
dominant concern is economic development, and, given that Vietnam
is fortunate enough to be located in the most dynamic region of the
world, that this is indeed a golden opportunity for Vietnam to break
out of its own developmental impasse. Such a chance is rare, and the
urgency of the task is embodied in the oft-repeated phrase "combining
the strength of the nation with the strength of the era in the new
period."
The relationship between national security and foreign relations is
becoming more coordinated. After years of carefully cultivating an
image of a friendly and cooperative Vietnam in the international
arena, resulting in normalized relations with all of its former enemies
and in memberships in regional and international organizations,
Vietnam is now more confident of stating its national interests in less
accommodating ways. In a 1994 article written for the army's monthly
publication, Deputy Foreign Minister Dinh Nho Liem emphasized that
"independence with sovereignty and territorial integrity is an
important objective of the diplomatic struggle combined with national
defense." He further elaborated: "We should not give up Vietnam's
sovereignty and sacred territory for the sake of improving relations,
economic interests, and friendship. The important thing is that we
must have clever ways of doing things and seek a formula of talks that
both sides could agree upon" (Dinh Nho Liem 1994: 71). The
reference to China is unmistakable. Despite Liem's stress on "clever
ways" of diplomacy to iron out the differences between the two
countries, this is a considerably harder line against China than was
taken in previous years. Vietnamese protestations against China's oil
exploration grant to the American company Crestone in 1994 bluntly
stated that it was a violation of Vietnamese territorial integrity.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also is firm when it comes to the
issue of human rights and routinely rejects any linkage between
foreign aid and human rights. Vietnam insists that human rights are
part of its own internal affairs and are inherently connected with the
country's history, culture, traditions, and socioeconomic conditions.

11 The Foreign Ministry's strategy on a number of issues such as that

of human rights is to take part in all the relevant international forums,
thereby

 Page 458
indicating its interest in participating in the larger discourse, while at
the same time firmly maintaining Vietnam's own views. This so-
called cooperation-struggle strategy aims at a flexible approach to
obtain the best possible outcome. In the words of Hong Ha, the
secretary of the Central Committee and the head of the party's
External Relations Committee,
[In international relations] depending on the opposite side, on the issue and
at a different point in time, the cooperative side or the struggle side may be
more prominent. One-way cooperation or one-way conflict both lead to a
losing and unfavorable situation. We push for cooperation but we still have
to struggle in a form and at a pace appropriate to each opponent in order to
safeguard our people's interest, establish equal relations that are mutually
beneficial and maintain peace. But we struggle in order to push forward
cooperation, avoiding the weak spots that would push us into a corner and
generate provocation. (Hong Ha 1992: 13)

It is not a zero-sum view of security, but the elaboration of a

cooperation-struggle strategy reveals a strong attachment to national
independence and a perception that even though the current trend is
toward economic interdependence and cooperation, Vietnam must not
be lulled into thinking that this will always be the case. Power can be
utilized in conjunction with cooperation, depending on the particular
situation, to garner the best possible outcome. It is a view of power
and international relations from the perspective of a small state, aware
of its limitations but also determined to maximize its possibilities.
Given Vietnam's success in both external relations and fostering
economic development in recent years, the state is finally at a point
where it can begin to put the cooperation-struggle strategy to use
through a skillful and confident Foreign Ministry.

12

Despite its growing salience, however, diplomacy has not usurped the
army's special position. After all, the first generation of military
leaders of the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) was simply an
extension of party leadership. Intimately connected with the struggle
for national independence and the construction of the socialist state,
the army has always had a strong political role, in marked contrast to
the customary division between civil and military affairs in other
countries (Thayer 1994a). The insistence on a political role for the
army has ensured that a wider view of economic and social
developmentrather than the army's own interestsis dominant in
national policy, along the lines shaped by the VCP (Pike 1986). The
fusion of civilian and military leadership has eased over the years,
especially with the recognition of the need for a more professional
army. Given the PAVN's unique origin and

 Page 459
experience and its exceptional record of internal unity, however,
William Turley, a longtime observer of the PAVN, concluded in 1988
that direct conflict between the party and the army is "virtually
unimaginable at present" and that "the military will not exceed the
limits of its legitimate political participation" (Turley 1988: 209).
Withdrawal from Cambodia and relative peace led to the
demobilization of troops and the rise of a new generation of officers in
a streamlined but efficient army. The spirit of being Uncle Ho's
soldiers must be preserved, but the PAVN wants to inject greater
professionalism in order to maintain discipline and morale. The army
has sought to modernize and to expand its foreign military relations.
Simultaneously, it has focused on political and ideological education
and ensured an adequate standard of living for the soldiers (Thayer
1994a). Vietnam's small gross domestic product and pressing
development needs will hamper the effort at modernization, but a
strong army is an integral part of Vietnam's security strategy. As one
analyst has noted, "the increase in the proportion of military spending
in national income from 6.6 to 8.4 percent of gross domestic product
in 1993 put Vietnam at a level of defense spending well above the
ASEAN average" (Turley 1996: 187). Rising state revenues have
allowed increases in defense spending, largely to strengthen Vietnam's
defense in the South China Sea (Thayer 1994a: 41). It has been further
reported that the army's budget has risen every year since 1992, and
its growing business activities are generating funds for the
modernization effort and ensuring a higher level of loyalty and
prestige among the rank and file (Mydans 1996).
Overall, there is no indication that Turley's 1988 assessment of party-
army relations and the army's role in the political structure needs to be
revised, although the growing involvement of the PAVN in economic
activities may become a source of real tension in the future. For now,
the army's strong organizational structure and its general reputation
for being the least corrupted institution have been attractive selling
points to foreign companies contemplating new joint ventures.
Continued economic success may mean a better standard of living for
the soldiers, new weaponry, and a more realistic opportunity for some
version of a national defense industry. However, the infusion of large
amounts of money into the army may also introduce corruption and a
divergence between the party's agenda and that of the army. It is not
inconceivable that in such a situation the PAVN's remarkable internal
cohesion may suffer greatly as private motives at different levels
override the organization's ideals and interests. The massive amount
of smuggling that goes on at the borders from China to Cambodia,
which many Vietnam-watchers believe could be conducted only with
the active

 Page 460
involvement of military, customs, and police officials, may be an
example of such breakdown (Schwarz 1996b).
External Security Threats
Although they acknowledge that the common trend in the world is
peace and development, the Vietnamese Communist Party's
assessments of the current situation maintain that new regional
alliances do not lead to the end of regional conflicts, especially those
with a historical dimension. At the moment, the two main external
security threats to Vietnam are China and Cambodia.
China
China looms large in the Vietnamese mind because so much of what
defines Vietnam historically is the extent to which Vietnam is not
Chinese. China's physical existence at Vietnam's northern border
serves as a constant reminder of Vietnam's difficult and complex
relationship with the Middle Kingdom. Even after the normalization
of relations with China in 1991, Vietnam has remained extremely
wary of China's intentions, especially in the post-Tiananmen period as
Chinese nationalism has been promoted by the state to overcome the
ideological gap between a still self-proclaimed socialist China and the
world, and between the government and its people (Chanda and Huus
1995). With a booming economy, an army loaded with new
weaponry, and growing influence in foreign affairs, the rising China is
causing anxiety in Vietnam.
The most complicated and dangerous conflict between Vietnam and
China is in the South China Sea. The locus of the conflict is the
Spratly Islands and adjacent waters, all or parts of which are claimed
not only by Vietnam but also by China, the Philippines, Malaysia,
Taiwan, and Brunei. The area's rich potential in mineral, fishing, oil,
and other natural resources is naturally attractive to Vietnam, but the
more immediate concern is security. Given that Vietnam's coastline
facing the South China Sea is more than 3,000 kilometers long and
contains all of its major ports, how to defend the country in this area
has always been a major concern. The following is a common
Vietnamese assessment of the South China Sea (Eastern Sea, from the
Vietnamese perspective) security situation: "Many wars of aggression
by reactionary and imperialist forces against our people have come
from this direction. The threat of their blockades against our country
from this sea direction has never been reduced. Penetrations to steal
intelligence information, conduct sabotage, establish connections, and
plant reactionary agents have also come from this Eastern sea zone"
(Nguyen Thanh Lieng 1990: 54).

 Page 461
Some Vietnamese believe that "[the Chinese aim] is to gradually
occupy the entire eastern coastal zone. In the name of implementing
the agreements, [the Chinese] will use their naval forces to perform
defense tasks and regularly maintain strong naval forces in this zone
with the aim of creating tension and turmoil throughout it" (Le Ke
Lam 1994: 70).
From the Vietnamese perspective, therefore, the dispute with China
over the control of the islands in the South China Sea has a strong
security component. In addition, the dispute has the potential to
become even more dangerous because of claims of oil and natural gas
deposits in the area. Both China and Vietnam have been awarding
exploration rights to foreign companies as a way to shore up their
territorial claims. In 1992, Beijing signed an agreement with the small
American firm Crestone Energy Corporation to explore an area west
of the Spratly Islands, and in April 1996, Vietnam leased two
exploration blocks in the same waters to the American oil firm
Conoco, whose parent company is DuPont. The diplomatic exchanges
between China and Vietnam have become more hard-line, with both
sides asserting indisputable sovereignty (Schwarz and Forney 1996).
Vietnam's concern with China also extends to economic interaction
along the northern border. Since the opening of the border between
the two countries in late 1988, border trade has grown enormously,
and the balance of trade has been in China's favor. The trade has eased
the serious shortage of ordinary consumer goods in northern Vietnam
in particular, but the large inflow of Chinese goods has serious
consequences for Vietnam's domestic production (Womack 1994:
507-8). Nevertheless, Vietnam's general success in obtaining capitalist
foreign investment may ease this dilemma, and such intense
competition may spur the Vietnamese domestic industrial sector to
transform itself. More problematic for Vietnam is the smuggling and
corruption that accompany the intense border trade, affecting not only
the state budget but also the effort to revamp the administrative and
legal structures. Although the border trade has transformed the
isolated provinces on both sides of the border, the much more
impoverished Vietnamese border areas have become a market for
arms as well, drawing large numbers of criminals of all types,
including heavily armed bandits (Chapon 1991). This domestic
security concern is overlaid with fear of Chinese intentions. A
Vietnamese military source asserts that "the constant and massive
smuggling of Chinese goods from China is a form of economic
sabotage"; other Vietnamese experts are convinced that the smuggling
is part of a plan by Beijing to destabilize Vietnam's domestic market
and damage its industries (Bekaert 1993: 56). Although the amount of
trade with Vietnam is minuscule for China, the fact that Vietnam
serves as a

 Page 462
dumping ground for cheap Chinese products stokes the latent
historical fear that China wants to keep Vietnam from achieving a
high level of prosperity and independence. The view of China as a
looming threat is one that is shared by much of the population.

13

China, therefore, remains the biggest external security threat to

Vietnam. Having normalized relations with China in 1991, Vietnam is
doing its best to cultivate friendly bilateral relations and is engaging in
talks over a number of contentious issues between the two countries.
Nevertheless, the cooperation-struggle view of security also means
preparing for possible conflict. To this end, Vietnam has stepped up
its defense line in the coastal areas, incorporating the local population
in the expansion of fishing activities and habitation of the islands as a
way to increase its meager naval capability. The increases in the
defense budget since 1992 as a response to the South China Sea issue
have been noted, and Vietnam's utilization of foreign companies in the
exploration of oil and gas in the contested waters is also a strategy to
shore up its territorial claims.
Vietnam's effort at improving relations with the United States also is
aimed at countering the Chinese influence in the region. Industry
sources, for example, argue that it is no coincidence that Hanoi
awarded the latest exploration concession to a giant American oil
company. They believe that it is part of Vietnam's strategy to engage
the United States, the world's greatest sea power, in sharing economic
interests in the highly contested area (Schwarz and Forney 1996).
Membership in ASEAN and other multilateral institutions is another
way that Vietnam tries to balance and constrain China. Being vastly
inferior to China in military capability, and specifically naval power,
Vietnam cannot hope to confront China alone on a large scale over the
island dispute. Vietnam's efforts to maintain and increase the current
rate of foreign investment and its war-weary population are additional
constraints to any dramatic military venture.
Diplomacy is therefore Vietnam's best hope for restraining Chinese
action and improving its own position. For a long time, ASEAN has
been reluctant to make a concerted response to China's behavior in the
South China Sea, preferring to leave the discussion at the bilateral
level. Nevertheless, there are signs that that reluctant mood may be
changing. For one thing, China's incursion into what was considered
to be Philippine waters in February 1995 irked the Philippines
considerably and helped to push through the Philippine Congress a
U.S.$2 billion armed forces modernization program (Tasker 1995). As
one of the original members of ASEAN, the Philippines' concern
regarding China's intention cannot go unnoticed by ASEAN itself,
which is always sensitive to Chinese dominance. ASEAN has begun
developing a

 Page 463
dialogue with China to express the member states' concerns,
particularly on security issues. In such a dialogue meeting with China
in April 1995, the ASEAN states took Beijing by surprise by
condemning the Chinese action toward the Philippines and criticizing
China's claim of sovereignty in the South China Sea (Vatikiotis et al.
1997).
Vietnam seeks to capitalize on these new developments to bolster its
own situation. In March 1997, a Chinese exploration vessel drilled for
gas about 65 nautical miles off the coast of central Vietnam in waters
claimed by Hanoi, opening up a new geographic area of dispute with
Vietnam. Although the area is not claimed by other ASEAN states,
Vietnam has called for ASEAN support. One senior ASEAN official
was quoted as saying, "We don't recognize any Chinese rights to
Vietnam's continental shelf, nor do we recognize the right of the
Chinese to do what they did. Now we're all in this together"
(Vatikiotis et al. 1997). ASEAN's position is far from clear, though
many observers view this as a possible test case for ASEAN in terms
of its relations with China as well as its credibility as a regional
organization. For its part, just to make sure that China is listening,
Vietnam opened the discussions with the ASEAN ambassadors in
March 1997 by mentioning a possible military relationship with the
United States. It is pertinent to observe here the visit of Admiral
Joseph Prueher, commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, to
Vietnam during the same month (Vatikiotis et al. 1997). As one
Vietnamese official maintained, "the fear of China is a new glue in
Asia" (as quoted in Chanda and Huus 1995), and China's rise as a new
global power is certainly watched with great concern by the ASEAN
states and the United States.
Cambodia
Vietnam's second major external concern is Cambodia. Vietnam no
longer espouses the concept of the "special relationship" that bound
the three communist states in Indochina together in the past, although
its relations with Laos continue to be close. Vietnam's current
relationship with Cambodia is described by a longtime observer as
one of "a neutral and non-aligned state," but potential sources of
friction exist between them. These include border demarcation
disputes, conflicting maritime territorial claims, and the status of
ethnic Vietnamese residents in Cambodia (Thayer 1994a: 67). Such a
list, however, does not reveal the fierce anti-Vietnamese sentiment in
Cambodia. In 1978 the visceral Khmer hatred for Vietnamese spurred
the Khmer Rouge's attacks on Vietnamese border villages, leading to
the retaliation by the Vietnamese military and to Vietnamese
occupation of Cambodia. The anti-Vietnam sentiment is regularly
exploited by Cambodian political parties.

 Page 464
Vietnam has stated time and again that it has no desire to return to
Cambodia in military terms; the ten-year military involvement in
Cambodia was costly. There is no reason to doubt that statement, and
Vietnam has scrupulously tried to maintain a neutral stance. Hanoi,
for example, rejected a recent Cambodian request for weapons parts
and ammunition to replenish its dwindling stocks in the war against
the Khmer Rouge (Bangkok Post 1994). Nevertheless, because
Vietnam cannot count on Cambodia to behave in the same manner, it
does what it can to maintain control at the border and to prepare for
the possible eruption of civil war in Cambodia. Territorial disputes
will continue to be a problem. For one thing, the land issue looms
large in the Cambodian psyche, which is permeated by the old fear of
being swallowed up by Vietnam. The Khmer Rouge exploited this
issue during the 1970s with its demands for a reexamination of
historical territory lost to Vietnam during the nineteenth century,
including large areas of southern Vietnam and even Ho Chi Minh City
itself. In more stable times, Vietnam and Cambodia under different
regimes have explored how best to resolve their disputes over the land
border mapped out by the French colonial authorities. Though the
relationship between Vietnam and the current Cambodian government
has been fairly calm, the constant Cambodian accusations that
Vietnamese farmers are encroaching into Cambodian territory along
the border areas with official support reflects both the continuing
latent distrust of Vietnam as well as the use of anti-Vietnamese
sentiments to boost Cambodian politicians' popularity (Schwarz
1996a). Security concern with disputed borders aside, the problem is
also an economic one from Hanoi's point of view. A massive volume
of smuggled goods cross the border into Vietnam, resulting in a
serious loss of tax revenues for the state (Schwarz 1996a).
Finally, the Khmer Rouge's continuing attacks on ethnic Vietnamese
living in Cambodia have led to a stream of Vietnamese crossing the
border back to Vietnam. The promulgation of the Cambodian
border back to Vietnam. The promulgation of the Cambodian
immigration law on August 26, 1994, by the Cambodian governmenta
law seen by foreign observers as targeting the Vietnamese community
in Cambodiais certainly viewed by Vietnam as a play of the race card
that grants the Khmer Rouge an additional measure of credibility for
its already virulent anti-Vietnamese message.

14

Internal Security Threats

Since the collapse of socialism in the Soviet Union and the Eastern
European countries, "defending the socialist fatherland" has become a
crucial security goal for the VCP. A key element of this goal is the

 Page 465
maintenance of firm control over society. The argument is that
internal political stability is a crucial condition for developmenta
lesson, according to one commentator, learned from "the failure of
restructuring in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, from the
experience of reform in China, and from the realities of renovation in
our country over the past seven years" (Le Huu Nghia 1994: 52). This
rationale for the need to maintain tight control in the domestic arena is
common in East and Southeast Asian states and has been deployed to
counter international and domestic pressures for further political
liberalization. Given its fear of being undermined by peaceful means,
the government's view of internal security is particularly broad.
According to the Ministry of Interior, "national security is not only
political security, but also economic security, cultural security,
ideological security and social security" (Bui Thien Ngo 1992: 5). The
contention that "all forms of ideological and economic sabotage
originate from political demands and lead to political sabotage"
presents the image of a state that is constantly on guard, ready to quell
any sign of unapproved development in any arena of social and
economic activity for fear that it might undermine the state itself (Bui
Thien Ngo 1992: 5; emphasis in the original). There is no doubt that
the overdeveloped Vietnamese security apparatus takes itself seriously
and has the power to project its purposes through a vast network of
police officers and informants.
Concern with internal security always has been strong in communist
states like Vietnam, but what constitutes a threat has changed
substantially since 1986. Some of the earlier internal threats are no
longer salient or are much less significant. Listening to foreign
broadcast programs, such as those of the Voice of America or the
British Broadcasting Corporation, and selling produce from one's
backyard were previously construed by the Ministry of Interior as
antistate activities. But in the era of doi moi such activities are no
longer viewed as security concerns. The dramatic transformation of
economic and social values since the adoption of renovation has had a
profound effect on the state's definition of antistate political activities.
In this connection, a number of issues previously high on the security
agenda are no longer viewed with the same degree of concern. The
overseas Vietnamese community, for example, is now much less of a
security concern. In fact it is being actively wooed for investment and
technological know-how. With time and a more open policy in
Vietnam, the overseas community also has largely dropped its
anticommunist tone and, consequently, has decreased its financial
support for anti-Vietnam ventures. Many expatriates also have chosen
to come back to Vietnam to invest in small-business activities. Thus,
the threat to the state from the

 Page 466
overseas Vietnamese remains primarily ideological, and the state
habitually rails against overseas reactionary organizations,
intellectuals, journals, and magazines that call for democratization and
the party's demise. Nevertheless, armed activities against the state
supported by an overseas Vietnamese connection continue to be
troublesome. One of the most serious overseas Vietnamese efforts to
wage an armed uprising against the state was discovered in Ho Chi
Minh City itself. Residents woke up one morning in March 1993 to
find the city swarming with military tanks. It later was reported that a
group of repatriated Vietnamese, armed with guns, grenades, and
explosives and under the leadership of an overseas Vietnamese,
planned to occupy the state radio and television stations and the
offices of the party's newspaper Nhan Dan (Kyodo 1993: 56).
Ethnic problems do not trouble Vietnam as much as they do other
states. The population is largely homogeneous, with a small number
of Chinese and a host of ethnic minority groups scattered in the
highlands. Almost all of the small but economically important
Chinese population was driven out of the country after the 1979
border war with China, but there are signs that the liberal economic
atmosphere is drawing them back. The number of ethnic Chinese in
Vietnam is currently too small to present a problem, and the
government is actively wooing them for investment and for their
connection to the world's overseas Chinese community. As for the
ethnic minority groups, the insurgency movement among them is
essentially under control. They do live in the border areas, however,
and the possibility of their exploitation by foreign enemies is a
sensitive issue for the Vietnamese leadership. Thus there is a constant
effort to ensure that the basic needs of the ethnic minority villages are
accommodated and that the army pays special attention to the units
based there.
If a number of previous domestic security concerns have fallen by the
wayside with doi moi, political and economic changes have brought
about new and difficult challenges to the state. Increasingly, concerns
are being expressed about the depletion of natural resources, the
dramatic growth of prostitution and related diseases such as AIDS, the
rapid decline of the health care and education systems, the
developmental gap between the cities and the countryside, the rising
rates of corruption and smuggling, and the inadequacy of the legal
system, among other issues. The more serious among these problems
for the state can be grouped under two related categories: state-society
tensions and the growing urban-rural gap. Feeding on one another,
these issues cut to the core of the dilemma facing the state: how to
balance continued growth while maintaining political stability in
which the VCP can continue to play its leading role. Furthermore,
although currently there is no viable political

 Page 467
opposition to the VCP, growing critical voices have to be
accommodated in ways that will not undercut the regime's legitimacy.
State-Society Tensions
The VCP's penchant for organization has led to the development of a
state structure that is far too unwieldy for its size, encumbered by
layers of overlapping institutions. The overlapping nature of party and
state institutions also has created a situation in which power can easily
be used for personal gain and responsibility is difficult to discern. As
Vietnam makes the transition to a market-oriented society, the current
state machinery and legal system are simply not equipped to deal with
the vast array of changes in economic, administrative, social, and
legal matters the transition entails. Corruption and smuggling have
become difficult problems for the state. The escalating flow of money
and goods into an impoverished country and the money-making fervor
of the open-door period have meant opportunities for many who
otherwise would languish, but at the same time corruption is being
pushed to a new height and taking increasingly sophisticated forms.
Government estimates of corruption and smuggling, generally
underreported to begin with, show that they are rising and involving
increasingly large losses to the state (Le Quang Thanh 1994). The
economic crimes also spell political troubles. Highly visible cases of
corruption by top party members in key government posts have
greatly damaged the prestige of the party and the state apparatus.

15 Moreover, the very mechanism to safeguard against corruption and

smuggling often has succumbed to the same vices, and the
opportunities of an open economy have presented new temptations to
those in positions of authority.

The system is simultaneously being challenged by new developments.

Tourism, for example, has fostered the creation of new golf courses
near major cities such as Hanoi and Dalat, and people who must
relocate to make room for these projects are not giving up their homes
without a fight, at the very least for appropriate compensation from
foreign companies that are acting with state approval. In another
instance, the state is finding that it is ill equipped to deal with
mistreatment of Vietnamese workers in joint ventures and foreign-
owned companies. The number of strikes is increasing. Official
figures list more than 200 strikes since 1990, but union officials
indicate that the number of unofficial work stoppages and wildcat
strikes is substantially higher (Schwarz 1996a: 63). The list of
complaints includes a much lower wage than what is stipulated by the
government, long working hours, and physical abuse. Trade union
organizations, long an integrated part of the administration of state-
owned enterprises, have little capability to

 Page 468
organize the workers in a foreign-owned enterprise, and in fact are
present in only 15 to 20 percent of the joint ventures with foreign
countries (Xuan Hai and Dang Ngoc Chien 1994). This is an area in
which the state is being criticized for not protecting its own people
against the deleterious effects of foreign investment.
Fraud committed by foreign companies, international drug smuggling
through Vietnam, use of Vietnam as a dumping ground for other
countries' wastethese are new issues for Vietnam to understand and to
handle. In this complex period of change, the state is being criticized
by intellectuals and the general population alike for being both too
weak to resolve key social issues and too overpowering in its control.
A more assertive intellectual community also is causing problems for
the leadership. The younger generation of intellectuals, who came of
age during or since the Vietnam War and who are much less affected
by the moral universe of the August Revolution and the anti-French
struggle, are becoming impatient with the heavy weight of the
socialist state and with their own poverty and isolation. They demand
quick action to rectify past mistakes.
A more open atmosphere has allowed other social grievances to
surface. Religious conflict is one example. Catholicism is a legacy of
French colonialism, and Vietnam, although predominantly Buddhist,
has the second-largest number of Catholics in Asia, after the
Philippines.

16 The Vietnamese Catholic Church has been very successful in

quietly negotiating for the return of church land and buildings in
Hanoi and elsewhere, the reopening of seminaries, and the renovation
of crumbling churches and offices after years of neglect. Nevertheless,
there is constant conflict with the Vatican, particularly over the
selections for top clerical posts and the Vatican's refusal to
acknowledge state-organized religious organizations such as the
Solidary Committee of Patriotic Catholics.17

Although the relationship between the state and the Catholic

community remains cool, ironically it is easier for the state to deal
with the Catholic community than with certain Buddhist groups.
Buddhism permeates many aspects of Vietnamese society and culture,
but Vietnamese Buddhism is amorphous, resulting in many Buddhist
organizations with emphasis on different aspects of the faith. In 1981
the Vietnamese government consolidated some nine Buddhist
organizations into the state-sponsored Buddhist Church of Vietnam
(BCV); the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV), under the
leadership of the monk Thich Huyen Quang, was the lone dissident.
Since then, there has been constant conflict between the state and the
supporters of the UBCV, particularly in 1994 and 1995.

 Page 469
The difficult relationship between the state and the UBCV is further
underlined by the fact that the UBCV maintains strong connections
with members of the overseas Vietnamese community in France and
Australia. The high international profile maintained by the UBCV
through its supporters in the overseas Vietnamese community and the
involvement of international human rights groups in the UBCV cause
put the government on the defensive, stoking the familiar charges of
foreign enemies and their Vietnamese agents whipping up ''a
campaign to criticize and distort the truth about our party and state's
religious policy. Worse still, they have cooked up many stories to
falsely accuse our state of religious repression and of human rights
violations" (Phan Hai Nam 1993: 55). In addition, the UBCV's tactics
whereby monks burn themselves, engage in sit-in protests, and
vocally denounce the state-sponsored Buddhist organization do not
give the state much leeway for negotiation. In late 1994 the UBCV led
large public demonstrations in Hue and Ho Chi Minh City calling for
religious freedom and for a boycott against the activities of the state-
sponsored Buddhist organization (Agence France Presse 1994b: 54,
1994c: 55). The large number of people involved in these
demonstrations apparently caught the authorities by surprise, and
participation on such a large scale does raise the possibility that the
grievances will coalesce and erupt in some kind of organized protest.
While being careful to contain public reaction by emphasizing the
difference between religious and civil matters, the state moved firmly
against the UBCV by arresting its top officials in 1995 (Agence
France Presse 1995: 72).
In response to the opening up of the economy and the growing
presence of Western and overseas Vietnamese, the Vietnamese state
has stepped up its warnings against social and cultural pollution.
There is a nativist reaction against the breathtaking changes in society,
especially in light of the younger generation's fascination with
Western culture and material gains. The 1996 campaign against
"social evils" is one example of such reaction. The Vietnamese
government fears the inroads of Western culture and has, like the
other Southeast Asian countries, sought to define a specifically Asian
approach to political, economic, and cultural development. Moreover,
as David Elliott (1993) has noted, generations socialized in
communitarian values and traditional cultures in the Soviet Union,
China, and Vietnam make it difficult for the population as a whole to
accept the rise of social stratification and vast differentiated levels of
wealth. Elliott, therefore, cautions against outside observers'
tendencies to equate the backlash against the disruptive aspects of
reform as simply the hardliners' reactions and argues that the state's
seemingly moralistic pronouncements against individualism,

 Page 470
anarchism, and the like actually resonate with many because they
accord with deeply rooted traditional norms (Elliott 1993: 57).
The state's dilemma, therefore, is twofold. On the one hand, it must
seek to contain old and new sources of discontent from within that
have emerged because of liberalization. On the other hand, it must
maintain the firm apparatus of state power if it is to deal with the
myriad new challenges coming from the flood of foreign investment
in a recently decentralized socialist economic and political system.
The state has continually emphasized that it seeks to ensure further
economic development along with the firm maintenance of order and
security, and that one requires the other. The VCP certainly
understands that order and security in an open economy mean
something different, requiring people's voluntary participation more
than ever. In this regard, top party leaders have moved to
institutionalize some administrative reforms. One method has been to
revive the National Assembly as a forum for frank exchanges rather
than simply a body to rubber-stamp the party's directives. Another has
been to streamline the administrative apparatus, consolidating the
activities of the various ministries and disentangling the party
structure from that of the state. Yet another measure has been to
purify and invigorate the party apparatus by weeding out bad cadres
and tightening up the recruitment process.
Viewed in relative terms, the party has achieved some success,
although the bureaucracy as a whole remains very unwieldy and
unresponsive. The rising rate of corruption and smuggling testifies to
the entrenchment of the system. The state is trying to effect change
through the attempt to transform the legal system, but unless a serious
overhaul of the whole legal system is contemplated, the level of
administrative injustice and corruption will continue to grow,
reinforcing the general disdain for the state apparatus and the widely
held belief that corruption and bribes are not only endemic but are
tactics to be learned and executed skillfully if one wants to get ahead.
Continued growth and distributive justice, issues of both economic
and political concern, will be greatly hampered if the state cannot find
ways to narrow the gap between a society reaching chaotically for
material gains any way it can and one in which the rule of law can be
an impartial and just alternative source of authority. Nevertheless, the
system that the VCP has constructed over some 40 years is a
formidable one, and there is no credible alternative opposition in
sight. The party's contention that without it there would be anarchy
and chaos is a powerful argument for many Vietnamese. But the
party, as we have noted, also faces many challenges. Turley's
assessment of the current situation is apt: "The greatest challenge to
the regime lies not in any imminent danger of collapse but in

 Page 471
the long-term task of institutionalization in the absence of a proven
model" (Turley 1993: 343).
Urban-Rural Gap
One of the biggest changes in policy Vietnam has pursued since the
adoption of the renovation strategy is the effort to free the productive
potential of agriculture. The state began the process by validating a
number of spontaneous local economic practices being used in the
struggle against the decline of the agricultural sectors (Kerkvliet and
Porter 1994; Fforde and de Vylder 1996). In 1988 the party essentially
abandoned inefficient cooperatives and began to return land to private
hands. Although the move resulted in the dramatic rise of Vietnam
from a rice-importing country to the third-largest rice exporter in the
world in 1989 and the appearance of abundant farm produce in
markets, real farm incomes have fallen sharply. In 1992 food prices
dropped 15 percent while the cost of nonfood items rose by 20
percent, according to the government (Hiebert 1993b: 60). Plots of
land in the Red River Delta around Hanoi are very small because of
overcrowding, and many farmers are forced to go to Hanoi and other
cities to find work during the off-season. The rise of urban wages has
led to some noticeable movement of population from rural areas into
the cities, exacerbating the high rates of unemployment, crime,
housing shortage, and urban pollution.
In July 1993 the state eased the peasants' situation through its
landmark decision to grant them long-term land-use rights for a period
of twenty years. Landholdings remain small at less than three
hectares, but the peasants can now transfer, exchange, lease, and
inherit land (Hiebert 1993a). A number of villages have seen
substantial increases in their standards of living, but they are
successful generally because they are located near a city like Hanoi
that provides easy access to market or because they have managed to
revive a traditional handicraft. Village life is better for many, but
poverty continues to be the norm for the bulk of the rural population,
many of whom cannot adjust quickly enough to the rapid
marketization of social and economic activities. By the government's
own estimates, nearly 10 percent of the urban population and about
half of the rural workforce are unemployed, leading to higher crime
rates and the growth of such societal problems as prostitution and
drug addiction (Vu Oanh 1994: 71-72).
The astounding 50 percent unemployment rate among the rural
workforce points to another problem, less immediate than the urban
situation but potentially more devastating. Foreign observers have
noted the growing differentiation of development between urban and
rural

 Page 472
areas, and data from studies done by various government offices and
research institutes in Vietnam all agree. Although the urban
population makes up only 20 percent of the total population,
preliminary results from a 1994 government survey of 4,800
households show that nine-tenths of the most impoverished live in the
countryside while two-thirds of wealthiest live in the cities (Hiebert
1994: 71). Other Vietnamese statistics show some 64 percent of the
rural population in the poorest categories compared to some 16
percent of urban population.

18 These numbers show the extraordinary level of poverty in the

countryside and the wide difference between urban and rural
standards of living. The wide urban-rural gap also has exacerbated the
country's historical regional disparities. A 1992 study by the General
Statistics Office revealed that per capita income in Ho Chi Minh City
and its surrounding provinces is 2.7 times higher than the national
average, followed by Hanoi and the Mekong Delta with an income of
116 to 126 percent of the national average (Hiebert 1994: 71). Though
the per capita income of the Red River Delta in the north is only half
that of the Mekong Delta in the south, it is the northern mountains, the
central highlands, and the central coast that lag farthest behind the rest
of the country with incomes of less than half the national average.

The sharply rising rates of homelessness, drug addiction, prostitution,

teenage marriages, and juvenile delinquency are direct consequences
of the country's uneven development. The increasing references in the
public press to the explosive rural situation indicate growing state
concern. The seriousness of the rural situation is further underlined by
the use of the term "hot spot," defined as "a place where a major or
even fierce struggle is going on among the people over some issue in
a particular sphere...which cannot be resolved on the spot and requires
intervention on the part of the party committee echelons, the
authorities, and judicial organizations from the primary level on up"
(Nhi Le 1994: 71). A hot spot, therefore, is a place where conflict
beyond the capability of the local political structure to handle has
flared up. The general relaxation of government control on agriculture
and village life has lifted the lid off simmering grievances in a number
of the rural localities, far removed from the fast pace of development
in Hanoi and other cities.19 Land reform and collectivization, the
taking of land for administrative offices, and the numerous
consolidations and divisions of provinces have resulted in complicated
land disputes that involve not only individual families but whole
villages. Land disputes, which account for 54 percent of the hot spots
in Thanh Hoa province, for example, can escalate to include a large
number of people, pitting one village against another and thereby
entailing wider police involvement.20

 Page 473
Another characteristic of these disputes has to do with the state
structure itself, in particular the problems of corruption and abuse of
power.

21 Peasants' numerous complaints often go unresolved, and it is not

surprising that "in some places, the masses suspect that the district is
covering up the mistakes of the primary-level cadres, which has made
the situation even more complex and tense" (Pham Van Tho 1994:
52). The seriousness of the people's grievances can be seen in the
extreme acts to which the people of Thanh Hoa resort in order to
publicize their complaints and to force appropriate official responses.
These acts range from lawsuits to public reprimands of corrupt cadres
and party members to taking a number of them hostage. The intense
level of popular anger demands in turn responses not only from the
primary-and district-level leadership organizations but also from "the
internal affairs, public security, control, and inspection sectors" (Pham
Van Tho 1994: 52). Far from presenting a picture of firm authoritarian
control, the study of Thanh Hoa's hot spots provides a rare glimpse of
the countryside in turmoil where security and order are not
guaranteed, not even among the components of the state charged with
maintaining law and order (Nhi Le 1994: 72).

The state is trying to ease the tension by streamlining administrative

practices and party apparatus and by channeling investment into these
troubled, impoverished areas, but so far with little success. The gap
between the party machinery and the people has never seemed so
great, and it is further troubling that the VCP central leadership does
not seem to be able to control the party apparatus in some regions. In
those regions, which are far from central control and also removed
from the economic rush that is happening elsewhere in the country,
provincial party leaders rule with an iron hand and are often
dismissive of central directives. Abuses of power frequently result.
The center-periphery problem goes deeper than that, however. The
easing of state control has allowed for the return of the self-contained
world of village Vietnam, and in many localities what matters is local
law, not national law. The growth of this center-periphery gap will
cause enormous problems for continued economic development and
for the cohesiveness of the state.
Conclusion
A decade after the official adoption of the doi moi strategy,
Vietnamese prime minister Vo Van Kiet can state that the country is
now "walking with both feet," meaning that Vietnam has managed to
establish and consolidate regional relations while diversifying its
international relations with the big powers (Nguyen Ngoc Truong
1994: 63). The image

 Page 474
is one of a Vietnam feeling more secure within its immediate
geographic space and more confident as an active member of the
larger international community. Neither an isolated Vietnam alone in
its struggle for survival nor a deeply polarized world is depicted in the
Prime Minister's discussion of Vietnam's foreign policy in the
renovation period.
The current situation in Vietnam is dramatically different from the one
a mere ten years ago, and it represents a significant transformation of
the mind-set of the Vietnamese Communist leaders. The Vietnamese
worldview is shifting from a pure realist one to one of complex
interdependence. The state remains the primary unit in both
international relations and domestic politics, but whereas security
once was externally oriented, it is increasingly focused on the internal
dimension. If international survival of the state was previously the
central security problem that subsumed all other considerations,
national unification and the collapse of socialism have modified the
almost exclusive focus on the political-military dimension to include a
much greater awareness of and concern with socioeconomic
grievances and political stability.
The survival of the regime became an issue after reunification in
1975, and doi moi was a response to the loss of political legitimacy.
The recognition that economic prosperity is crucial to regime
legitimacy and that societal voices must be given room for expression
is generating an increasingly complex response. The world is,
therefore, viewed through a much less hostile lens than a decade ago,
and the give-and-take nature of an economically and politically
interdependent international system is increasingly being accepted as
a fundamental guiding factor for strategies of economic development
and international relations. Furthermore, the end of the Cold War
coincided with a period in which Asia, and more specifically
Southeast Asia, was being heralded as the most dynamic region of the
world. The methodical moves of withdrawing from Cambodia,
normalizing relations with China and the United States, and achieving
membership in ASEAN clearly pointed to Vietnam's recognition that
the region is currently enjoying an unprecedented period of
development, one in which the risk of conflict and war is relatively
low while the potential gain from investment and technological
transfer for Vietnam is quite high.
For the moment, however, although the VCP's formulation of a
socialist state has been greatly undermined since 1975 and critical
voices are being heard, there is so far no coherent alternative
framework to challenge what is already in place. The general disdain
for the party is very high, and yet there is no consensus as to what can
replace it. Tradition, fear of chaos, and decades of existence as a
socialist state have all contributed to make Vietnamese society a
conservative one, desiring

 Page 475
of law and order. In fact, the central issue the state is grappling with
currently is not whether less control over society is warranted but
what state control should entail and how it can be made more
effective. Since the official endorsement of liberal economic practices,
people have protested less about the oppressive weight of the state
than about the state's lack of effectiveness in resolving key social
issues.
Fear of chaos and a tortuous history of trying to erect a cohesive state
to safeguard the national essence also mean the acceptance of the
dominant position of the state in the Vietnamese political culture.
Moreover, there is a heady sense of discovery as Vietnam begins to
open itself to the larger world. A younger generation of Vietnamese,
however, also is trying to recover the past. There is a burgeoning
interest in the literature and intellectual currents of the 1930s and
1940s, the period of greatest development of the modern Vietnamese
culture, long censored by the VCP. Southern works, banned after
1975, also are being reprinted. The VCP is uneasy with all these
developments, but it is a process the party cannot fully control.
Members of this younger generation, less encumbered by the legacy
of the revolution or even of the anti-American war and more confident
about their place in the world, will pose a great challenge to the party
and its views of state and society in the future. Furthermore, national
pride is emerging after the years of poverty and underdevelopment
and the psychological exhaustion of the war.
Vietnam's embrace of regionalism is easily understood given
Southeast Asia's economic growth and political stability, but this
chapter has argued that a more confident Vietnamese identity is also
emerging which allows for a more balanced appraisal of Vietnam's
own Chinese-inspired classical past as well as for a discovery of
historical linkages with other Southeast Asian states. Fierce
independence coupled with a more confident and assertive national
identity are important whenever Vietnam looks outward, and external
threats such as China (and to a lesser extent Cambodia) that impinge
on the Vietnamese state will arouse great resistance among the
Vietnamese population, which can easily be stimulated to feel the
threat to the nation itself. Vietnam has shown in the past that, in spite
of its small size, it is capable of and ready to use military force when
necessary.
Nevertheless, with general peace in the region and Vietnam
undergoing a period of intense changes, it is the internal dimension
that poses more immediate challenges to the state. Economic
prosperity, social harmony, and issues of distributive justice are
domestic concerns that demand a restructuring of the state in terms of
its organizing ideology and its administrative and legal systems. In
particular, the problems of the countryside, if not soon alleviated,
could prove to be explosive,

 Page 476
combining as they do the issues of uneven development, the growing
gap between the center and the periphery, and the lack of an adequate
social safety net and channels for redress. The level of intense unrest
in Thai Binh province in the north and Dong Nai province in the south
in late 1997, for example, pointed to a long list of grievances that
included land disputes, treatment of Catholics by local authorities,
uneven wealth distribution, and corruption by officials. The economic
crisis that affected Asia in the second half of 1997 should also give
the Vietnamese government pause in pushing single-mindedly for
economic growth capitalist style without giving sufficient attention to
the social and political implications of these new developments.
In short, with the arrival of peace, a certain measure of economic
success, and a coherent state structure, the question of national
identity is emerging once againbut this time in the context of a more
judicious and balanced view of the past and the nature of
"Vietnamese-ness." Fierce nationalism and the conviction that
struggle is endemic in international relations are constants in this
view, which still emphasizes vigilance, but a new sense of national
confidence clearly acknowledges the need for and the advantages of
cooperation. In practical terms, this new confidence means that
Vietnam's current concerns are converging with those of the ASEAN
states and focusing on economic growth, friendly external relations,
and noninterference in what are considered to be a country's internal
affairs. State-managed economic and social development in a one-
party state and the insistence on sovereignty and national cultural
values when it comes to issues such as human rights and political
change are powerful core elements linking Vietnam to the other
countries of Asia.
Socialism, as it is increasingly being expressed by Vietnam, resembles
more and more the successful model of the one-party authoritarian
state so prominent in Asia, liberal in economic growth but
conservative in political and social change, insistent on an
independent national organizing ideology. Given Vietnam's much
more realistic appraisal of its own position in the regional context and
in the international arena, coupled with the understanding that this is a
global age, it appears likely that the changing construction of security
outlined in this chapter will endure. Cautious and gradual change will
be the VCP's preferred mode of action in the foreseeable future, and
the skillful practice of the struggle-cooperation strategy will allow
Vietnam to maintain its position and maximize its potential. The
process will include its share of backward steps, but the emphasis on
moving forward is one that is valued by virtually all Vietnamese.

 Page 477

MARITIME SOUTHEAST ASIA

15
Indonesia
Domestic Priorities Define National Security
Dewi Fortuna Anwar
We today stand firmly upright in the mighty ranks of the new emerging
forces, and we are now storming the last bulwarks of imperialism. There is
no power in the world that can prevent the peoples of Asia, Africa, Latin
America from emancipating themselves.
PRESIDENT SUKARNO, 1965
I feel that the national resilience concept is the only answer to the challenges
posed by a world still dominated by tension. National resilience encompasses
ideological resilience based on a nation's own identity which receives the full
support of the entire nation, economic resilience capable of meeting the
nation's
own basic needs, social resilience which ensures the feeling of solidarity and
harmony among the peoples, and an appropriate military resilience to face
aggression from outside. Without national resilience we shall always be
afraid.
PRESIDENT SUHARTO, 1970
Indonesian national security under the New Order is defined
primarily, though not exclusively, by domestic priorities. Since the
military-led New Order government under President Suharto came to
power in 1966, the articulation of security goals, the perception of
threats, and the approaches to security have overwhelmingly been
framed in terms of internal political and economic needs. The
emphasis on domestic priorities stems from the general belief,
particularly among the military elite, that the greatest threats to
Indonesian national security

 Page 478
come from within the country itselfsecessionist movements, religious
radicalism, challenges to Pancasila,

1 and activities that promote class conflicts. The consequences of

these threats are perceived to be wide-ranging, from fragmentation of
national unity and integrity to social disorder that could disrupt
economic activities.

In the view of the New Order, Indonesia is relatively secure from

conventional external threats. Envisaged external threats take the form
of infiltration and subversion designed to exploit existing internal
conflicts or exacerbate societal differences. Such a view stands in
sharp contrast to that espoused by President Sukarno, the first
president of the republic (1949-67). Sukarno believed that Indonesia's
independence and national unity were directly threatened by foreign
powers, in particular by the former colonial and imperialistic states,
which continued to maintain their military presence in the neighboring
countries.
The New Order's emphasis on the internal sources of insecurity has
led to the development of a comprehensive and largely, though not
exclusively, inward-looking security strategy. Security is not
primarily regarded as a solely or even primarily military problem;
rather, it is seen as a political, economic, and social concern connected
to nation-and state-building. The fundamental insecurity of Indonesia
stems from the fact that it is a newly independent country with a
highly heterogeneous population, most of whom are still poor and
barely educated, living in an equally fragmented territory. Indonesia
unilaterally declared its independence on August 17, 1945, but the
Dutch only transferred sovereignty to the new republic in the last days
of December 1949 as agreed at the Round Table Conference in the
Hague (Kahin 1970: 433-45). These basic weaknesses are
compounded by the fact that the new unitary republic has no real
historical antecedents,2 so that commitment to the Indonesian national
identity has not spread equally throughout the archipelago and can
never be taken for granted. At the same time the political system is
still fragile, and the government has limited economic capability to
govern effectively and gain the allegiance of the people.
The Suharto government has devoted most of its energy to
overcoming these basic national weaknesses and developing "national
resilience." The concept of "national resilience" is defined as "the
dynamic condition of a nation which includes tenacity, sturdiness, and
toughness, which enables her to develop national strength to cope
with all threats and challenges coming from within as well as from
without, which would directly or indirectly endanger national life and
the struggle for national objectives" (Suryohadiprojo 1987: 20-29).
National resilience is all-embracing, including national identity,
national economy, and society as well as military capability.

 Page 479
It is difficult to discuss Indonesian national security as a distinct topic,
separate from the other aspects of national life. Security
considerations are paramount in almost every action taken by the
government: the New Order's raison d'être is the restoration of
political stability and the improvement of the peoples' living standard.
The political structure of the New Order, which reaffirms the dual
functionssociopolitical and defenseof the military, and the limitations
placed on political activities in general have all been designed as parts
of the comprehensive security policy. Economic development is
regarded as an equally crucial security strategy. The goal of economic
development is not simply to remove most of the root causes of social
and political opposition to the government by increasing prosperity,
but also to unify the country and make government control more
effective through the building of modern communication
infrastructures.
Given this overwhelming emphasis on domestic priorities, Indonesian
national security conceptions and approaches have tended to
downplay external threats. Although Indonesian nationalism still
harbors suspicions of the outside world, particularly where relations
with the major powers are concerned, the New Order government has
for the most part tried to neutralize possible threats from outside
through regional cooperation and diplomacy. The government's
objective is to ensure a friendly and stable regional environment so
that it can devote most of its energy and resources to resolving
internal political and economic problems. Although the military has
played a predominant role since the establishment of the New Order,
building a credible conventional defense capability has not been
accorded high priority. This is the result of both limited funding and
the recognition that economic development should come first.
Nevertheless, the end of the Cold War, which led to decline in U.S.
military presence and the prospect of increasing competition among
major regional powers, has produced new regional uncertainties that
are forcing Indonesia to pay much more attention to its external
environment than ever before. So far, however, no new doctrines have
emerged to indicate a major shift in the country's security outlook,
though piecemeal attempts are being made to improve Indonesia's
conventional defense capability, such as through the purchase of
fighter aircraft and frigates (Dupont 1996: 275-97). Limited funding,
however, has continued to constrain the modernization of the navy
and the air force. Rather than building a credible defense capability,
the Indonesian government has continued to put a much greater
emphasis on the development of bilateral security relations with
neighboring countries as well as on various modes of regional
cooperation, including multilateral security dialogues.

 Page 480

Changing Worldviews and Their Consequences

The present-day Indonesian conception of security that emphasizes
domestic concerns and challenges stands in sharp contrast to that of
the earlier Guided Democracy period under Sukarno. Sukarno saw the
most immediate threats to Indonesian security as coming from
external forces, especially from Western colonial and imperialistic
powers that wished to continue their presence and influence in the
region by other means. Sukarno was convinced that Indonesia was
surrounded by hostile forces bent on subverting its independence.
These differing worldviews manifested themselves in sharply
different policies. Sukarno's view led him to launch a confrontation
against the West, and in particular against the new Malaysian
Federation, which he considered to be a plot to encircle Indonesia. In
contrast, Suharto's New Order has befriended the West and
established close bilateral and regional cooperation with its
noncommunist neighbors.
The first two decades of the republic of Indonesia were marked by
political, social, and economic turbulence. The new nation faced a
multitude of internal challenges, ranging from violent disputes about
the ideological foundation of the state to regional rebellions and
secessionist movements in various parts of the archipelago. Many of
these challenges, including an armed uprising by the Partai Komunis
Indonesia (PKI, or the Indonesian Communist Party) in 1948, had to
be put down militarily. Simultaneously, Indonesia was engaged in an
increasingly acrimonious conflict with the Netherlands over West
Irian, which was not included in the transfer of sovereignty from the
Dutch colonial power to the Republic of Indonesia in December 1949.
Debates about whether the government should give priority to internal
political consolidation and economic rehabilitation or to the liberation
of West Irian divided the political elite between the so-called
''administrators" and the "solidarity makers" (Feith 1962). The
"administrators," led by Vice President Mohammad Hatta, were
primarily concerned with governance and with developing the
national economy. In their view, the revolution had ended with the
transfer of sovereignty from the Dutch. They opposed actions that
diverted national attention from the business of establishing an orderly
process of government and restoring the national economy. This
group of leaders supported a negotiated settlement of the West Irian
issue. The "administrators" advocated close cooperation with the
West. For the "solidarity makers," led by President Sukarno, the
revolution was not yet over because West Irian had not been returned
to the republic. This group stressed independence and advocated a
confrontation against all

 Page 481
forms of colonialism and imperialism, even if this meant allowing the
Indonesian economy to suffer. Sukarno's fervent anticolonialism
received the support of the nationalist and the communist parties.
Although the army leadership shared Sukarno's belief in the need to
secure West Irian by any means necessary, including force, its outlook
on the importance of maintaining internal stability and promoting
economic development was much closer to that of the
"administrators."
The division within the postindependence political leadership was a
legacy of its revolutionary experience. Unlike Malaysia or the
Philippines, Indonesia had to fight for its independence from the
Dutch, in a struggle that culminated in a revolutionary war between
1945 and 1949. That revolutionary experience promoted an
ambivalent worldview: the outside world was hostile, replete with
forces constantly threatening Indonesia's independence and integrity
and seeking to exploit its natural wealth and strategic location; but at
the same time the outside world represented a source of aid and
support.
The failure of the negotiations on West Irian between Indonesia and
the Netherlands, which took place throughout the 1950s, and
Indonesia's defeat at the United Nations General Assembly vote in
1957, strengthened the position of the "solidarity makers." Sukarno's
obsession with the West Irian dispute and his militant anticolonialism
led him to view the world not in terms of the global ideological
conflict between the "free" and communist worlds, but in terms of the
nationalist struggle the world over against colonialism and
imperialism. It was the struggle of the "newly emerging forces"
(NEFOs: the new states of Asia and Africa plus the socialist
countries) against the "old established forces" (OLDEFOs: the
imperialist powers of the West). In keeping with this view, the
Indonesian government opposed the presence of the British bases in
Malaya, Singapore, and British North Borneo as well as the U.S.
Malaya, Singapore, and British North Borneo as well as the U.S.
bases in the Philippines, which Sukarno felt were actually aimed at
containing Indonesia. That suspicion was strengthened by the covert
help given by the British and the Americans to the PRRI/PERMESTA
regional rebellions that took place in Sumatra and Sulawesi in 1958.

3 PRRI stands for Pemerintah Revolusioner Republic Indonesia, or the

Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Indonesia; and
PERMESTA stands for Perjuangan Rakyat Semesta, or Universal
People's Struggle. The two rebellious movements, led by local
military commanders, the former based in West Sumatra and the latter
in North Sulawesi, joined forces to set up an alternative government in
opposition to the Java-based central government, which was perceived
to be leaning to the left. The regional rebels were joined by a number
of prominent Jakarta-based politicians from the Muslim Party,
Masyumi, and the

 Page 482
Socialist Party, PSI, who were opposed to Sukarno and the Indonesian
Communist Party (PKI). The PRRI/PERMESTA rebellion was
quickly crushed by the military loyal to the central government.
The importance attached by Sukarno to the process of decolonization
and the strategies adopted to achieve it have attracted a great deal of
scholarly analysis. One observer argued that the course of Indonesian
foreign policy during this period was mainly determined by President
Sukarno's psychological impulses as a "fervent nationalist" (Bunnell
1966). Another maintained that the emphasis on anticolonialism was
mainly a continuing attempt by an "emerging" nation to forge its
national integration (Reinhardt 1971). In yet another view, the sense
of constant movement and crisis that the anticolonial struggle
engendered was specially created by Sukarno as an integral part of his
"mechanic" of government" (Legge 1972).
There is no doubt that Sukarno's anticolonialism was genuine, but
clearly he used the struggle against an external enemy as a rallying
point to unite the polarized national elites and to keep himself in
power. From the very beginning the "solidarity makers" opposed the
development programs espoused by the "administrators" because such
programs would weaken their political position, which thrived on
tensions and rapid politicization. The campaign to liberate West Irian
and the subsequent confrontation against Malaysia left little room for
those who wanted to focus on internal stability and economic
rehabilitation. Equally important, the mass mobilization and constant
political agitation ensured that the initiative did not slip from
Sukarno's hand to the army. Instead, the army's growing
powerparticularly after the massive arms purchases intended for the
West Irian campaignwas effectively counterbalanced by the PKI. The
PKI in turn was totally dependent on the president, who protected the
party from the army, which all along had sought to ban it (Feith
1963).
While Sukarno's political balancing kept him in power, the rapid
politicization and mass mobilization deeply polarized Indonesian
society, particularly between the anticommunist forces (the army and
Muslim groups) and the PKI. The growing political tension was
exacerbated by Indonesia's economic crises, caused by the
confrontation against Malaysia and the drying up of Western
economic aid and investment. The political and economic crisis
reached its climax in the abortive communist coup of September 30,
1965, by soldiers close to the PKI. The army under General Suharto
put down the attempt. In the counteroffensive the PKI was disbanded
and declared illegal, and PKI members and sympathizers were either
killed or imprisoned. President Sukarno was impeached and Suharto
was appointed president in his place.

 Page 483
The New Order government under Suharto was dominated by the
military in partnership with civilian technocrats. In almost every
aspect the new government was the antithesis of Sukarno's earlier
Guided Democracy. Unlike Sukarno, who could maintain his power
only through mass mobilization and political radicalism both at home
and abroad, the military's political control in fact entailed severe
restriction of political activities. This meant that militant anticolonial
struggles such as the confrontation against Malaysia, which
radicalized and mobilized the population, were not acceptable to the
New Order leaders.
Similarly, the New Order's concerns about domestic unrest in general
and its violent communism led to a shift in priorities from anticolonial
struggles to internal political stability and economic development. In
the view of the New Order elite, the greatest danger to Indonesia, and
to Southeast Asia as a whole, was not external military threats but
rather economic underdevelopment and backwardness
(Prawirasoebrata 1989). In their view, poverty provided a fertile
ground for communist ideas to flourish, and it exacerbated other
social and political grievances against the government. Therefore, the
New Order adopted economic development as the panglima
(commanding priority) rather than politics, the panglima during
Sukarno's era. Thus, since 1966 participatory politics has been
sidelined in order to give the government maximum political control
to allow it to achieve its interrelated objectives of political stability
and economic growth. This ideological outlook and shift in priorities
pushed Indonesia closer to the West as the primary source of finance
and technology necessary for economic development. Indonesia's
anticommunism also pushed it closer to its noncommunist neighbors,
including Malaysia.
The rise of the New Order did not transform Indonesia's ambivalent
view of the world, however. Although it now saw the outside world,
particularly the major Western powers, as an important source of aid
and support, Indonesia still considered the major powers as potential
sources of external threats. But these potential external threats were
no longer viewed in terms of direct invasion, occupation, and
annexation that threatened Indonesia's existence and integrity as a
sovereign and independent state. Rather, the danger was external
interference in the domestic as well as regional affairs of the nations
of Southeast Asia as they pursued their own interests in the context of
the Cold War and the Sino-Soviet conflict. Such external interference,
however, would be made possible by domestic as well as regional
conflicts and instability. For this reason the New Order has
emphasized the importance of achieving domestic as well as regional
peace and stability through the development of national and regional
resilience. Regional resilience is

 Page 484
based on the national resilience of individual countries in the region
and on harmonious relations among them (Anwar 1992: 13-14).
Security Goals
Indonesia's defense and security doctrine states that the ideal of the
national struggle is to realize a unitary Republic of Indonesia that is
independent, united, sovereign, just, and prosperous based on
Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution. The struggle is aimed at
transforming the Indonesian national condition from that of a
colonized and backward people into an independent and successful
nation, freed from exploitation, poverty, ignorance, backwardness,
and other forms of suffering (Departemen Pertahanan 1991: 14-15).
Within these general national ideals one can distinguish several
distinctive but closely related security goals: sovereignty, unity and
integrity, stability, economic development, and regime security.
Sovereignty
At the top of the list is the need to maintain Indonesia as an
independent and sovereign state. This is regarded as sacrosanct and
not subject to compromise. This national commitment is clearly
reflected in the country's defense and security principle that "the
Indonesian nation loves peace, but it loves independence and
sovereignty even more" (Departemen Pertahanan 1991: 27-28).
Without independence and sovereignty the Indonesian nation cannot
achieve any of the other national goals.
As a country that suffered colonialism and foreign exploitation for
centuries and that obtained its independence only after a bloody
revolutionary war, Indonesia is understandably zealous with regard to
its independence and sovereignty. As a result it is generally opposed
to any activities or associations that may impinge on its sovereignty.
Indonesia is a member of many regional and international
organizations such as ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian
Nations), APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation), and the
Nonaligned Movement. All of these organizations, however, are fairly
loose in nature, emphasizing deliberation and consensus in decision
making. Membership in such organizations is generally seen as a
means to enhance the country's independence and economic
development.
National sensitivity over sovereignty is very pronounced in the
political and defense arenas. Indonesia's violent opposition to defense
alliances during the Cold War period was due to the fear that such
alliances would subordinate Indonesia's interests to those of the major

 Page 485
military powers that usually dominated them. Indonesia's adoption of
and continuing adherence to a "free and active" foreign policy
doctrine and its membership in the Nonaligned Movement are clear
testimonies to its unwillingness to share sovereignty in the fields of
politics and security. Even after the New Order came to power and
Indonesia developed close relations with Western countries, including
relations in security areas, Indonesia has refused to take part in
defense alliances.

4 This stance, however, seems to have softened in recent years, clearly

as a consequence of the end of the Cold War and the emergence of
new security challenges and threats in the wider Asia-Pacific region.
In December 1995 Indonesia signed a "Framework Security
Agreement" with Australia, the first such agreement that Jakarta has
ever signed, though officials in Jakarta have strenuously denied that
the agreement constitutes a defense alliance between Indonesia and
Australia. That agreement will be discussed later in the chapter.

It has been difficult for the government to maintain autonomy in areas

outside the political-security arena, such as the economic sector.
Indonesia's developing economy requires the infusion of foreign
capital and technological know-how. Sukarno's radical nationalism
and violent opposition to Western political and economic interests led
him to advocate berdikari, or "standing on one's own feet," in the
economic field. The experiment in autarky was disastrous, bringing
the Indonesian economy to a standstill and leading to a popular
uprising against President Sukarno. The New Order government under
President Suharto from its very early days looked to the Western
industrialized countries and Japan for assistance in stabilizing and
developing the Indonesian economy. In 1966 the Intergovernmental
Group on Indonesia (IGGI), a consortium of donor countries and
international financial institutions, was set up under the chairmanship
of the Dutch Minister for Cooperation and Development.
In spite of Indonesia's great dependence on external capital,
technology, and markets, Jakarta is very sensitive to any attempt to
link economic arrangements to political conditions. It refuses to
accept any economic or technological assistance if there are political
strings attached. President Suharto unilaterally dissolved the IGGI in
1992 because its chairman, Jan Pronk, the Dutch Minister for
Cooperation and Development, was critical of Indonesia's policy in
East Timor after soldiers fired at demonstrators in Dili in November
1991. Within a year, however, Indonesia was able to persuade the
World Bank to form and chair another aid consortium for Indonesia,
called the Consultative Group on Indonesia (CGI), from which the
Netherlands has been excluded.5

 Page 486
Unity and Integrity
Equal to independence and sovereignty is the goal of maintaining
national unity and integrity. This objective in fact contains several
elements. The first is the unity among the peoples and the unity of the
territories, as elaborated in the national idea of Wawasan Nusantara,
or Archipelagic Outlook. This national doctrine conceives of
Indonesia as a single political, social, economic, and defense unit. All
of the islands and the seas in between are regarded as forming one
indivisible entity, reflecting Indonesia's conception of the
"motherland" as Tanah Air or "Place of Land and Water."
The concept of national unity also involves a commitment to maintain
a unitary form of government based on Pancasila and the 1945
Constitution. This commitment is a reaction to the Dutch-sponsored
federated system, the Republic of the United States of Indonesia
(R.U.S.I.) introduced immediately after the transfer of sovereignty in
December 1949. Indonesian nationalist leaders viewed the federal
system as an attempt to preserve Dutch influence and weaken
Jakarta's control of the archipelago. The unitary system of government
that soon replaced R.U.S.I. ensured a much more centralized system
of government, under which the provinces depended politically and
economically on the central administration.
Adherence to Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution is considered to be
the prerequisite for a united Republic of Indonesia. Pancasila, as the
only state ideology that so far has been capable of uniting the many
ethnic groups and competing religious faiths under one political
system, is firmly believed to be indispensable to national unity.
Indonesians see Pancasila as uniquely Indonesian, blending universal
and indigenous values, stressing religious tolerance as well as balance
and harmony in all aspects of life. Nationwide acceptance of Pancasila
as the sole foundation of the state and other sociopolitical
organizations is regarded as a primary security goal by the
government, especially the military.
Stability
Second only to concerns about national integrity is the government's
obsession with maintaining political stability. Political disturbances of
any kind, including overt criticisms of government policy, are usually
not tolerated because of the constant fear that they might undermine
the government's authority. There is also a general fear that political
instability in one area would be regarded as a sign of weakening
government control and thus would lead to trouble in other parts of
the

 Page 487
country, weakening national integration. Political instability could
also be exploited by antigovernment forces within the country as well
as by hostile foreign interests through infiltration and subversion. The
state's obsession with maintaining political stability is related to the
conviction that it is essential to economic development.
Maintenance of political stability under the New Order cannot be
separated from adherence to the 1945 Constitution, which gives
enormous power to the executive. During the liberal democracy
period (1950-58) the 1945 Constitution was replaced by a provisional
constitution while a new one was being drafted. President Sukarno
and the military leaders had little patience for either the provisional
constitution or the one being drafted by the civilian politicians. Under
those constitutions the president was only a titular head of the state,
and the military would be firmly under civilian control. Further,
Sukarno and his circle blamed the liberal democratic system for
political instability during this period and for the outbreak of regional
rebellions. One and a half years after the rebellions started, President
Sukarno, supported by the armed forces' central commanders, issued a
decree on July 5, 1959, that dissolved the Parliament and returned the
country to the 1945 Constitution (Feith 1962; Nasution 1992).
The New Order government obviously has an interest in maintaining
loyalty to the 1945 Constitution, for that constitution enables the
government to accumulate and centralize power. Earlier experiments
with constitutional democracy, the search for a more balanced
distribution of power, and the promotion of civil liberties in the 1950s
are now seen as deviations from the ideals of the 1945 Constitution
that had negative consequences for the state. Upholding the 1945
Constitution alongside Pancasila is regarded as a primary security
goal, and it is firmly stated in the armed forces' oath of allegiance. In
the government's view, political stability entails a strong executive
control.
Economic Development
The New Order government has elevated economic development to
central importance. Economic development is seen by the political
elite not only as an end in itself to increase prosperity and social
welfarea key aim of the independence strugglebut, equally important,
as a prerequisite for political stability. Many of the earlier
insurgencies and grievances against the central government had their
roots in economic dissatisfaction. Further, the government's claim to
legitimacy rests to a considerable extent on its economic performance.
Because uneven economic development or disparities in the
enjoyment of the benefits development can breed ethnic and class
conflicts

 Page 488
and undermine political stability and national unity,

6 the New Order government has in principle pursued the

"development trilogy": political stability, economic growth, and
equitable distribution of development benefits. During the first
decades of the New Order, political stability was the first priority,
followed by a high rate of economic growth and social equity. Since
1978, however, equal distribution of development opportunities and
benefits has been at the top, followed by a relatively high economic
growth rate and a healthy and dynamic political stability, as can be
seen from the successive Guidelines of State Policy (GBHN, or Garis-
Garis Besar Haluan Negara) (Lemhanas 1982). Despite such formal
commitment, however, and the numerous measures adopted to
eradicate poverty, the lack of political transparency and accountability
has led to corruption, collusion, and monopolistic practices privileging
a small number of Chinese conglomerates and members of the
president's family.

Regime Security
A final security goal of the government is clearly the maintenance of
its own power, authority, and legitimacy (Pabottingi 1995b). The
security of the state and that of the government are usually portrayed
as one and indivisible, so that challenges to government authority are
construed as challenges to the state. In other words, criticisms of
government policy or officials are usually regarded by the government
as attacks against the state itself and as evidence of disloyalty to
Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution. Public officials and military
leaders often argue that without the existing political system and form
of government Indonesia would fall back into chaos, probably
resulting in the disintegration of the unitary republic and the
destruction of whatever economic development has been achieved.
For obvious reasons, regime maintenance as a security goal is not
usually articulated in official documents. The New Order, however,
has closely identified itself with Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution,
two increasingly sacrosanct principles. The maintenance of the New
Order government is thus presented as synonymous with the
preservation of national security.
The security goals described here have been encapsulated in a
comprehensive security doctrine known as ketahanan nasional, or
"national resilience." As noted earlier, it does not emphasize military
strength alone; rather, it refers to a balanced resilience in all aspects of
national lifeideological, political, social, economicas well as in the
defense and security fields. Economic development is the foundation
for all the other components of national resilience. Indonesian leaders
believe that to ensure national resilience, the country must avoid
involvement in

 Page 489
ideological confrontation and bloc politics, whether military, ethnic,
or religious (Anwar 1992: 14).
Indonesia's internal security goals are seen as directly dependent on
global peace and especially on regional peace and stability in South
east Asia. Although Indonesia's security conception has tended to
emphasize the domestic and nonmilitary aspects of security,
Indonesian leaders have always been very conscious of the direct link
between national security and international conditions. As one New
Order official pointed out,
To Indonesia, South East Asia represents her main interest, not meant for
domination as feared by some countries, but through which Indonesia
honestly sees her own survival. This can be understood from the fact that
Indonesia is a territory richly endowed with potential wealth and large
population, forming an archipelago with the longest coastline which is
exposed to infiltrations and very difficult to control. The sea no longer
represents a barrier, but instead has become a highway in the
communications of nations. Therefore, any threat to Indonesia's security
and its internal stability has to come through neighboring countries.
(Soenarso 1970: 1-2)

As a corollary to the concept of national resilience, therefore,

Indonesia under the New Order has also attached great importance to
the development of regional resilience.
Perceived Threats to Security
The Indonesian defense establishment defines as a threat anything that
can negatively affect the attainment of the national objectives and
survival, arising from outside or within the country. Potential threats
range from acts of crime, sabotage, terrorism, and subversion to crises
such as armed rebellions, limited warfare, and open warfare. They
cover the political, economic, sociocultural, and military dimensions.
As noted earlier, in the view of the New Order leaders the greatest
dangers to Indonesian national security come from within the country
itself.
Internal Threats
The obsession with internal sources of insecurity is clearly the product
of the first two decades of independence, during which the central
government, particularly the army, had to deal with a multitude of
domestic challenges including regional rebellions, Islamic
insurgencies, and attempted communist coups d'état. This political
turbulence was mainly due to the lack of a national consensus among
the postindependence national elites regarding the formthat is, the
state structure and

 Page 490
political systemthat the new republic should take. Another factor was
the growing regional differences with the central government.
Differing political orientations, which during much of this early
period were shaped by the so-called aliran, or ''streams" (such as
Islam, secular nationalism, traditional Javanism, socialism, and
communism) resulted in considerable tensions. Each aliran had its
own ideals of what the Indonesian state should be and its own notion
of the most serious threats to that ideal. In many cases, the presence of
an opposed sociopolitical group was regarded as the greatest danger to
national and group security. This was the situation between the
Muslim partiesespecially the modernist Muslim party, Masjumiand
the PKI, the two most antagonistic groups in Indonesian politics in the
1950s.
Civil-military divisions were also major sources of national tensions,
producing different perceptions of security. To the military the
multitude of political parties, none of which drew enough support to
form a viable government, and their sharp political differences
presented a major source of national instability. The military also
viewed the liberal democratic system of government, which
subordinated the military to civilian political leaders, as a direct threat
to its own corporate identity and solidarity, because the politicians
often tried to use the military for their own political ends. For their
part, civilian leaders regarded the military's impatience with
democratic processes and its intervention in politics as threats to the
fragile democratic system of government and contributors to its
instability.
A primary objective of the New Order when it came to power was to
eradicate the competing referent units of security in the name of
maintaining order and stability. The nation-state was posited as the
only legitimate referent of security. The New Order has identified
three key internal threats to security: first, the threat to the ideological
foundation of the state from the extreme left (communist) or extreme
right (Muslim fundamentalist) groups; second, the ideological threat
posed by democratic movements; third, the threat of separatist
movements or rebellions that endanger the unity and territorial
integrity of the state.
Ideological Threats from Communism and Islam
The New Order regards communism as the most dangerous ideology.
The communists earned the undying enmity of the army when the
former staged an armed rebellion to seize control of the national
leadership in September 1948, while the Indonesian Republic was still
fighting for its survival against the returning Dutch power. The army's
hatred of the communists reached a new peak when the PKI master-
minded the abortive coup in September 1965 in which several senior
army generals

 Page 491
were murdered. Although the PKI was banned within days of the
abortive coup, the New Order continues to believe that undetected
communist members and sympathizers are still active, waiting for
opportunities to undermine the government's authority through the so-
called unformed organizations.

7 The government's suspicions about the possibility of a leftist

subversion have not disappeared with the end of the Cold War. The
government usually sees the hands of underground communist
sympathizers in many of the activities of radical NGOs, in student
demonstrations, and in labor strikes.

The New Order government also continues to harbor suspicions of

political Islam. Although the vast majority of Indonesians are
Muslims, the New Order government has been strongly opposed to
political Islamic organizations. There is a deep-seated suspicion,
especially within the military establishment, that Islamic organizations
still have reservations about Pancasila, even though it was accepted as
the sole ideological basis of the state by all political groups and mass
organizations in 1985. This attitude on the part of the military also has
origins in the 1950s when the army had to put down several armed
revolts by radical Islamic groups that rejected Pancasila as the
ideological foundation of the Indonesian Republic and wished to set
up an Islamic state. Those Islamic movements, which spread to many
parts of the archipelago and lasted until the 1960s, were popularly
known as the DI/TII (Darul Islam Tentara Islam Indonesia or the
World of Islam Indonesian Islamic Army).
Just as the Indonesian government restricted Indonesian interactions
with the communist world during the Cold War period, it took similar
measures with respect to what it regarded as radical Muslim countries
in the Middle East. Indonesia, therefore, has not played a very active
role in the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC); indeed,
until recently was only an observer in the OIC. In the past few years,
however, the government's antagonism toward the nonreligious aspect
of Islam has diminished. This is evidenced by the increasing
rapprochement between President Suharto and the Islamic
community, particularly his support for the Indonesian Muslim
Intellectual Association, founded in 1990. The government has also
increased its involvement in the OIC and promoted closer relations
between Indonesia and other Muslim countries. Those efforts are
primarily aimed at diversifying Indonesia's export markets and
promoting South-South cooperation to reduce dependence on the
West. Indonesia is a founding member of the so-called D-8 (the D
stands for developing countries) which was launched in Istanbul,
Turkey, on June 15, 1997. The D-8 groups eight Muslim countries
with the aim of promoting closer economic and tech-

 Page 492
nical cooperation among the members, analogous to the G-7, the
group of major economic powers.

8 Nevertheless, Islam as a political ideology still remains anathema to

the government.

The Democratic Threat

The global march toward democratization and greater concern for
human rights has found echoes in Indonesia, particularly among
Western-educated intellectuals, nongovernmental organizations active
in community development work, and people's empowerment
projects, as well as among independent journalists and university
students. These groups and individuals increasingly challenge the
authoritarian system of government and demand a more open,
pluralistic, and accountable political system. Demands for a more
democratic system of government are also directly linked to criticisms
of cronyism in the economic sector. The critics charge that cronyism
has led to monopolistic and oligopolistic economic practices involving
top-ranking officials and their families in collaboration with a few
Chinese conglomerates.
In the post-Cold War period the government views these
prodemocracy groups and human rights activists as its most
immediate threat, for they question the legitimacy of the government
and seek to undermine the basis of power of the New Order
government. Government distrust of prodemocracy activities is not
new. As we have seen, the army had little sympathy for the liberal
democracy experiment in the 1950s, which it largely blamed for the
political instability during that period.
Political stability and economic development are perceived to be
linked together in an endless chain of cause and effect. Threats to
political stability from any source would hinder the smooth process of
development by distracting the government's attention and resources
from development efforts. Conversely, obstacles put in the way of
economic development projects are seen as a direct threat to political
stability. Examples include opposition from people dispossessed of
their land to make way for a major dam project to supply much-
needed electricity, and the actions of environmental groups protesting
industrial pollution or deforestation. In the same way the government
sees workers' strikes to demand higher wages or better working
conditions as politically subversive activities, while those who
question the propriety of certain government policies are accused of
being antidevelopment.
The Secessionist Threat
In the past three decades Indonesia has not faced any serious threats of
regional rebellions like those that engulfed the country in civil wars in

 Page 493
the 1950s. There are, however, three small secessionist movements
active in Aceh, West Irian, and East Timor. Publicly the government
refers to these regional secessionist movements as Gerombolan
Pengacau Keamanan (GPK, or Security Disturbance Bandit Groups),
a pejorative term that denies their legitimacy as political groups.
Although the three provinces account for only a very small percentage
of Indonesia's population and territory, the government views
secessionism as a threat to the idea of the Indonesian nation-state as
well as to its territorial integrity. It has therefore acted vigorously to
confront and contain them with the eventual goal of eliminating them.
Aceh, one of the most volatile provinces in Indonesia because of the
independent and warlike nature of its people, was one of the earliest
supporters of the republic of Indonesia. But because of political
mishandling by Jakarta, the province soon turned against the central
government. Trouble began when the central government incorporated
Aceh into the province of North Sumatra, reducing its status from a
province to a district or regency in early 1953. The Acehnese protest
was interpreted by Jakarta as a revolt. Government military action
pushed the province into an open revolt led by Daud Beureuh, who
launched an armed struggle to establish an Acehnese Islamic state
(DI/TII) in 1953. The rebellion lasted until 1959, when the central
government promised to give the province a special status with
autonomy in religious and customary laws.
Although Daud Beureuh and most of his followers returned to the fold
of the Indonesian republic, a few, such as Hasan Tiro, continued the
struggle to set up an independent Acehnese state (Aceh Merdeka) and
from time to time take up arms against the government. Although the
separatist movement has dwindled into insignificance, Aceh is still
occasionally engulfed in violence, mostly due to religious and
socioeconomic grievances. As hosts of the country's largest liquefied
natural gas (LNG) plant, the Acehnese feel that they should have
benefited more from this natural wealth. Instead, the industry is
owned and controlled by the central government because the 1945
Constitution clearly stipulates that all the country's natural resources
belong to the state. The most serious recent disturbance took place in
1990 and lasted several months. Order was restored only after the
government launched a major military offensive spearheaded by the
elite Special Force Command (Tempo 1990: 22-31).
Although there are many similarities between them, the West Irian
problem is many ways much more intractable than that of Aceh. The
trouble dates back to 1962 when West Irian was finally made part of
Indonesia. The Dutch had supported West Papuan nationalism in an

 Page 494
attempt to abort Indonesia's takeover of West Irian. In 1965 Permenas
Ferry Awom, a sergeant major in the Dutch-created Papuan Volunteer
Army, started an armed rebellion for the independence of Western
Papua. The Indonesian government dubbed the movement Organisasi
Papua Merdeka (OPM, or Free Papua Movement). On July 1, 1971,
the OPM proclaimed the establishment of the Government of Western
Papua under the presidency of General Seth J. Rumkorem. Between
1971 and 1984 there were at least seventeen major OPM offensives.
The OPM also carries out international campaigns from its basis in the
Netherlands.
The OPM resistance is much more difficult to eradicate than the Aceh
problem because of the intractable differences that separate the
Irianese from other Indonesians. Whereas the majority of Indonesians
are ethnic Malays, the Irianese are Melanesians. Islam, the majority
religion, has not had much influence among the Irianese, most of
whom still adhere to their traditional beliefs or have been converted to
Christianity. These differences, however, do not really constitute
major stumbling blocks to the West Irianese integration with the rest
of Indonesian society; Indonesia comprises more than 300 different
ethnic groups and five recognized religions. Although Melanesian
solidarity has pushed the West Papuan nationalists to forge closer
links with other Melanesian states in the South Pacific, there are in
fact more Melanesians living in eastern Indonesia than in the Pacific
islands.
The fundamental problems relating to West Irian arise from the huge
gap in the level of development between the local economy (most of
the Irianese depend for their livelihood on hunting and gathering) and
the rest of Indonesia, as well as from the government's socioeconomic
policies. To relieve the population pressure in other parts of Indonesia,
particularly in Java, the government has encouraged migration to
West Irian, which is sparsely populated. The government has also
sought to exploit West Irian's natural resources, especially copper,
with little benefit to the local population. The central government's
policies on migration and resource exploitation underscore the
political unrest that has periodically erupted in West Irian. The
intrusion of the modern economic sector into Indonesia's most
undeveloped province has clearly disrupted the traditional mode of
living of the Irianese, stimulating support for the separatist movement.
More than Aceh and West Irian, the question of East Timor has
proved to be the most difficult security and diplomatic problem for
Jakarta. The incorporation of East Timor into Indonesia has continued
to meet with internal resistance and external criticism. When the
nation's founders fought for Indonesian independence, they claimed
only the

 Page 495
territory controlled by the Netherlands East Indies. The nationalist
leaders ignored East Timor, a tiny Portuguese colonial backwater.
East Timor was thrust to the forefront of Indonesian national concerns
in 1974 when the new leftist and anticolonial government in Portugal
gave East Timor three options: to continue its association with
Portugal, to become independent, or to integrate with Indonesia. Three
major political parties emerged in East Timor: the Fretilin, which
demanded independence for East Timor; the Apodeti, which wanted
to integrate with Indonesia; and the UDT, which advocated continuing
the association with Portugal.

Civil war broke out in August 1975 when the UDT launched a coup
d'état against the Fretilin, which had seized control after the
Portuguese left. Apodeti later joined forces with the UDT. At their
request, Indonesia sent "volunteers" to help them in the battle against
Fretilin, which was supported by the Portuguese government. On
November 28, 1975, Fretilin declared an independent East Timor
state, but this unilateral declaration was rejected by both Indonesia
and Portugal. On November 30, 1975, the UDT, Apodeti, and two
smaller parties, Kota and Trabalhista, proclaimed East Timor to be
part of Indonesia. At their request, on July 16, 1976, the Indonesian
House of Representatives passed a bill on the integration of East
Timor into the country. President Suharto signed the bill the next day,
officially making East Timor Indonesia's 27th province (Bilveer Singh
1995; Saldanha 1994). About 200,000 people were reportedly killed
during the brief civil war.
The United Nations and most members of the international
community have not recognized Indonesian sovereignty over East
Timor. Portugal and several other Western countries have accused
Jakarta of forcibly annexing the former Portuguese colony. The
Fretilin, moreover, has continued its struggle for independence, both
from within the territory and from bases overseas. The integration of
East Timorese into Indonesian society has been made more difficult
by the traditional independence of the local Catholic Church, which is
under the direct administration of the Vatican, separate from the
Indonesian Council of Churches. The East Timorese Catholic Church
has often been openly critical of the military, and it is sometimes
suspected by Jakarta of encouraging dissent among the East Timorese
youths.
Many young Timorese have become supporters of the Fretilin, and
recently a small number of them have left the country for Portugal,
because of the military's heavy-handed approach to the East Timor
problem. In November 1991 soldiers fired at demonstrators, killing a
great many (the official number was much lower than that reported by
foreign media). The incident served to alienate the East Timorese

 Page 496
further, and Western criticisms of Indonesia over the issue has
intensified. Now, although the military strength of the Fretilin has
become relatively insignificant, the social, political, and economic
problems of East Timor still loom large because popular resentment
against the central government has made it increasingly difficult to
maintain the status quo in the region.
Equally important, the East Timor issue is beginning to strain
Indonesia's relations with Western countries because of the
importance attached to human rights in the West in the post-Cold War
era. Support from Portugal and various Western organizations for the
Fretilin has made East Timor a diplomatic burden for the Indonesian
government, harming the New Order's traditionally close relations
with the United States and Western European countries. In fact, the
internal threat to security from the secessionist movement in East
Timor is much less serious than the possible threats of economic or
military-related sanctions from the West.

10

External Threats
Indonesia's external security concerns under the New Order are
mostly related to indirect threats, such as subversion, that can weaken
Indonesian society from within. Those threats can take many forms,
such as challenges to the ideological basis of the nation-state or the
political system, weakening of the Indonesian economy, or activities
that can lead to the disintegration of the unitary republic. Such
external challenges, however, can be effective only if there are
preexisting internal problems to exploit. At present the Indonesian
government does not fear any immediate external threat to Indonesian
security from foreign military aggression, but Jakarta has always been
conscious of the importance of a stable and friendly regional
environment to its well-being.
The Major Powers
During the Sukarno period the presence of foreign military bases
(British and American) in Southeast Asia was regarded as a threat to
Indonesia. With the advent of the New Order government, Jakarta's
policy changed dramatically. The Western military bases were viewed
as beneficial in some ways, for they afforded Indonesia a measure of
security against communist threats from China and the Soviet Union.
Nevertheless, Indonesia continues to be ambivalent toward foreign
military bases. Although some leaders privately admitted that the U.S.
bases in the Philippines gave Indonesia a sense of security, the official
line continued to oppose the bases. For Indonesia, security must rest

 Page 497
upon national and regional resilience rather than protection by foreign
military patrons. The presence of foreign military interests in the
region is viewed as an obstacle to the development of national and
regional resilience.
With the closure of the U.S. bases in the Philippines, the Indonesian
government believes that the way is open for the ASEAN members to
develop an indigenous and autonomous regional order, as formulated
in the concept of the Zone of Peace, Freedom, and Neutrality
(ZOPFAN). However, new threats are on the horizon. Though most
Indonesians do not adhere to the theory of a regional vacuumit is a
matter of national pride to state that Indonesia's security depends on
its own effortsthey are increasingly concerned about a possible
American departure and the intentions of other regional powers.
Although the end of the Cold War has greatly reduced global tension
and increased the salience of political and economic issues, there is
still the possibility of conflict among the smaller and medium powers
(Suryohadiprojo 1989).

11 Questions have been raised in Jakarta about the expanding military

capability of Japan and India, but Japan is not perceived as a serious
threat because of its heavy involvement in mutually beneficial
economic relationships with Southeast Asian countries, and India has
never been regarded as an enemy. Nevertheless, Indonesia views
those nations' military outreach with concern because such activity
could hinder the realization of ZOPFAN.

The most serious perceived threat to regional security is that

emanating from the People's Republic of China. The New Order
government has long been suspicious of China because of the PRC's
earlier close tie with the PKI and its suspected involvement in the
abortive communist coup. One of the first acts of the Suharto
government was to freeze Indonesia's diplomatic relations with China.
Relations were not normalized until August 1990. Throughout this
period the Indonesian government tried to insulate the nation from any
contacts with China, even banning the use of Chinese characters for
fear that they might contain subversive messages.
Since the normalization of diplomatic ties between Jakarta and
Beijing, relations between the two countries have improved,
particularly in the economic arena. Nevertheless, the Indonesian
government, and especially the military, still suspects China's
intentions in Southeast Asia. Those suspicions have been compounded
by China's claims in the South China Sea and its aggressive behavior
in enforcing them, particularly with regard to the Spratly Islands.
Although Indonesia is not a claimant in the Spratly dispute, it has a
special interest in its peaceful settlement because conflicts in the
South China Sea can affect the

 Page 498
security of the Indonesian island of Natuna, where major LNG
production is taking place. Indonesian concerns have been
exacerbated by the publication of a Chinese map that includes part of
the Natuna waters under China's patrimony, and by China's military
buildup aimed at developing its capability for power projection
(Anwar 1992, 1994a).
Concerns have also been expressed domestically about the political
and economic implications of the increasingly powerful overseas
Chinese communities in Indonesia and other Southeast Asian
countries and their possible relations with Beijing. China's call for the
overseas Chinese to participate in its economic development is seen as
a threat not only to Indonesia's national integration but also to its
economic well-being. The government tends to view any investment
made by Indonesian Chinese in their ancestral land as capital flight;
most Indonesians see it as a sign of disloyalty.
Economic and Political Changes
In recent years another external challenge has appeared in the form of
economic protectionism among the major industrialized countries that
constitute Indonesia's traditional export markets. That protectionism
has an added dimension in the post-Cold War period because of the
tendency among the Western governments to link economic
concessions with political conditions, such as democratization,
protection of human rights, improvement of workers' conditions, and
environmental protection. The Indonesian government regards such
attempts to impose political conditions on economic interactions as a
threat to its national sovereignty. It sees Western countries' promotion
of democracy and human rightsnow very much part of the former's
foreign policy agendaas disguised economic protectionism as well as
a new form of cultural imperialism that tries to impose "Western
values" on Indonesian society.
The Indonesian government also sees a threat in the activities of
international human rights organizations, such as Amnesty
International and Asia Watch. These two organizations have often
published reports on the Indonesian government's abuses of power
and violation of human rights, particularly in the case of East Timor.
Such reports have embarrassed the Indonesian government and set
Western public opinion against Indonesia, thus affecting those
countries' policies toward Jakarta. As noted earlier, the East Timor
issue has become a primary area of contention between Indonesia and
the West. The Indonesian government sees a growing danger in the
efforts of Western governments and international organizations to
promote universal acceptance of democratic and human rights
principles. Such notions are dangerously

 Page 499
attractive to the intellectual community and nongovernmental
organizations at home, and thus present a political challenge to the
authoritarian political system.
Approaches to Security
The policies and strategies the Indonesian government deploys to
attain its articulated security goals and to address perceived threats
clearly reflect its comprehensive conception of security, which
emphasizes the domestic dimension. They are aimed at ensuring
national unity and political stability, combating internal sources of
insecurity, and protecting Indonesia from external threats of all kinds.
These strategies are necessarily multidimensional, encompassing
economic, political, and social as well as military approaches.
Strategies to counter internal threats include management of
ideological conformity, tight sociopolitical control of society, and
economic development. Internationally, the strategies include seeking
international recognition of Indonesia's archipelagic outlook,
developing a limited conventional weapons capability, establishing
good bilateral relations with neighboring countries, and cooperating in
regional affairs. Further, Indonesia recently signed a security
agreement with Australia, breaking a long-held taboo about entering
into security alliances. In facing external threats, Indonesia's security
approach has emphasized liberal institutionalism in an attempt to
transform international relations from a zero-sum to a positive-sum
game.
Internal Strategies
One of the most important strategies for internal control is to ensure
ideological conformity, which means to enforce the total acceptance
of Pancasila, the state ideology. Pancasila is to be the only ideological
basis of political parties and social organizations. This policy has been
successful insofar as Pancasila was formally accepted by the political
parties and social organizations as the sole ideology in 1985.
Interpretations of Pancasila, however, continue to be contested. The
government, therefore, has made continuous attempts to promote a
uniform understanding of what Pancasila really stands for. This
ideological conformity is enforced through "Penataran P-4" training to
enhance national understanding and devotion to Pancasila at all levels
of society. (P-4 is Penataran Pemahaman dan Pengamalan
Pancasila, or training on understanding and the implementation of
Pancasila.) For government employees this Penataran is compulsory.
According to the ideals of the Pancasila Democracy, which has been
actively promoted by the New Order gov-

 Page 500
ernment, the republic of Indonesia is an ''integralistic" state, meaning
it does not recognize the distinction between state and people or
between military and civilians. The government acts as the father of
the people in one large, happy family. Within this political construct
opposition to the government is considered to be illegitimate and,
therefore, intolerable. The concept of "loyal opposition" that exists in
liberal democracies is considered alien to Indonesia's political
traditions. Opposition to the government challenges Pancasila
Democracy and the state itself (Vatikiotis 1993).
As noted earlier, the New Order has emphasized the need to maintain
political stability as a prerequisite for economic development, which
in turn is regarded as indispensable for preserving internal peace and
stability. The threats to national unity, the endemic political
instability, and the economic problems faced by Indonesia before the
New Order came to power were blamed by the military on too much
politicization and division among the political elite. Consequently, the
New Order has tried to limit popular political participation, but at the
same time to mobilize the people to support development activities
through various corporatist organizations led by the military and the
bureaucracy.
The New Order keeps political control of society through
depoliticization and the concept of the floating mass. This approach is
a reaction to the frantic politicization and resulting sociopolitical
polarizations that characterized the pre-1966 period. Under the New
Order, political parties cannot operate below the district level so that
the villagers will not be "confused" or "misled" by political parties.
The government's political organ, Golkar, however, is allowed to
campaign down to the village level. The requirement that all civil
servants, including district heads and village functionaries, become
members of Golkar ensures that the government's own political party
will win the majority of the seats contested at every election. At the
same time the legislative and judicial branches of the government are
firmly under the control of the executive (Liddle 1978).
Political freedom has also been severely curtailed through various
regulations. For instance, the mass media can operate only after
obtaining a special permit, which can be revoked any time if the
government feels that a certain publication has stepped out of line.
The Indonesian government also continues to enforce the Dutch
colonial law that required large gatherings of people for other than
social purposes to obtain special permits from the police. Until 1996 a
permit was needed to conduct a seminar or workshop. The police
often stopped such activities in midstream if they felt that the
meetings were too critical of the government or if some of the
speakers were known to have voiced

 Page 501
opposition to the government. These laws have now been relaxed so
that anyone planning a large gathering has only to notify the police of
the planned event, without having to wait for a permit.
The activities of nongovernmental organizations and the labor unions
are also subject to tight control. Until recently strikes and
demonstrations were regarded as subversive activities punishable by
imprisonment. Most social, political, and economic organizations
sanctioned by the government are in reality extensions of the
executive arm, designed to simultaneously control the populace and
mobilize it for development purposes. Besides the threat of
imprisonment, critics of the government may be prevented from
traveling overseas (a restriction known as cekal). Similarly, foreign
critics are often regarded as persona non grata, forbidden to remain in
or enter the country (tangkal).
The government justifies all these controls and regulations that
proscribe civic freedom in general, and political activities in
particular, in the name of development. Because the government has
succeeded in developing the economy and improving the general
standard of living, it has been able to forestall serious challenges to its
authority. Except for the educated elitewhose numbers, though small,
are growingthe majority of the population seems to be relatively
content to trade political liberties for economic growth. Discontents
surface, however, when the government seems only to favor certain
well-connected individuals and big Chinese businesses over the rest.
The sporadic violence that rocked various parts of Indonesia in 1996
and 1997, however, reveals a disturbing increase in dissatisfaction
with government political and economic policies. During the violence,
rioters' attacks targeted mostly government buildings and Chinese-
owned properties.
The Hankamrata (Total People's Defense System), designed with
external aggression in mind, also enables the government to control
society. This doctrine envisions the military, acting as a core, and the
whole population rising in unison against an invading force. The
Hankamrata doctrine was a product of the revolutionary war against
the returning Dutch colonial forces. The poorly armed and trained
Indonesian militia was able to wear down the professional Dutch
military forces because the militia received the full support of the
population in the long, drawn-out guerrilla warfare. This led to the
belief Indonesia's defense must rely on solidarity between the armed
forces and the civilian population. In any war the military would only
act as a nucleus, mobilizing the entire population against the enemy.
Although the Hankamrata doctrine was initially a response to external
aggression, its later applications have usually been related to internal
sources of security. The Hankamrata doctrine led to the development
of

 Page 502
the territorial defense system, which reaches down to the district level.
The idea is that each local command can mobilize, train, and arm the
local population to defend the country against enemy attacks through
territorial defense. Because most of Indonesia's security concerns
come from within the country itself, the presence of army personnel
down to the district level, paralleling local governments' apparatus, is
clearly not designed to prepare the populace against an external
enemy. Rather, it points to a basic distrust of the population. Thus, in
spite of the ideal of Hankamrata, the military has been reluctant to
give the general populace military training, let alone to provide
villagers with weapons. The official explanation is that such universal
military training would be costly and unnecessary, given the fact that
Indonesia does not face any immediate external threat. In practice, the
territorial defense concept has served as an effective tool for
sociopolitical control, allowing the army to monitor the people down
to the local level and thereby neutralize potential opposition to the
government before it becomes unmanageable.
The government's sociopolitical control over the population has been
strengthened further by the military's so-called Dwi-Fungsi, or "dual
function role," which gives the military sociopolitical rights and
responsibilities alongside its purely defense role. Through the dual-
functions doctrine, military personnel are allotted seats in the
parliament. They also can occupy various non-defense-related
positions in government bureaucracies and in state-controlled social
and economic organizations from the highest to the lowest level,
while they are still in active service or after retirement. The current
president and the last vice president of Indonesia are retired generals.
Military officers have served as cabinet ministers, ambassadors,
provincial governors, district chiefs, directors of state banks and state
enterprises, and heads of various national sports organizations
(Crouch 1978; Sundhaussen 1982).
The military's involvement in politics is aimed at ensuring political
stability so that economic development can take place. Economic
development, in turn, is expected to ensure popular acceptance of the
government and give further legitimacy to the military's dual
functions. Political stability is achieved by the imposition of tight
political control to strengthen the state and correspondingly weaken
the civil society.
Another major internal threat comes from the various secessionist
forces. Coercion and economic development have been the dominant
themes in the government's approach to secessionist threats. Political
solutions have not been explored, because the government believes
that giving in to the political demands of the secessionist groups could
threaten Indonesia's national unity and integrity. Further, as noted
earlier, maintaining a unitary system of government in which the

 Page 503
provinces are mostly dependent on the central government has long
been a primary security goal of the republic of Indonesia. In the past
few years attempts have been made to introduce more regional
autonomy at the district level (below the province). The government,
however, is strongly opposed to giving regional autonomy at the
provincial level, fearing that it may pave the way toward federalism, a
concept that is still anathema to the ruling elite.
The New Order believes that secessionist efforts are mostly the result
of economic grievances. The government, therefore, has paid special
attention to the economic development of such trouble spots as Aceh,
West Irian, and East Timor, allocating large sums of money to provide
physical and social infrastructures such as roads, electricity, schools,
and hospitals. The government clearly hopes that with improved
living standards the people in these provinces will become loyal
citizens and will no longer support secessionist activities. If such
activities continue to take place, however, the military will try to wipe
them out. The government has also maintained a more visible military
presence in these areas, particularly in West Irian and East Timor.
East Timor provides the best case study of Indonesia's efforts to
counter secessionism. In the past two decades the Indonesian
government has poured no less than 1.9 trillion rupiahs (U.S. $832
million) into development projectsmostly consisting of physical
infrastructureto bring East Timor to the level of the rest of Indonesia.
The Portuguese had neglected the territory, so that in 1975 East Timor
had only 20 kilometers of paved roads, 47 elementary schools, 2
junior high schools, and 1 senior high school. By 1996, East Timor
had more than 2,683 kilometers of paved roads, 715 elementary
schools, 114 junior high schools, 58 senior high schools, and 4 tertiary
institutions (a university and colleges). Today, every school-age East
Timorese attends school Jakarta Post, July 14, 1997).
This economic strategy to win over loyalties, however, has not always
been successful. Although Indonesia no longer faces any serious
secessionist threats, anti-integration activities still occasionally disturb
political stability in East Timor, West Irian, and Aceh. In most cases,
the regional military commands are able to deal with the threats. But
when the regional military commands cannot deal with a particular
security emergency, such as the armed rising in Aceh and the hostage-
taking in West Irian, the Special Force or Kopasus (Komando
Pasukan Khusus) based in Jakarta is deployed until the crisis is over.
The East Timor case shows, however, that by confining its anti-
secessionist strategy to economic development and coercion alone, the
Indonesian government cannot resolve the political situations in the
long

 Page 504
run. Indiscriminate use of force to quell secessionist threats only
produces more grievances against the government. Further, economic
development has also created new problems, such as the emergence of
a new educated class whose rising expectations the government
cannot always satisfy. Recent antigovernment demonstrations in East
Timor were led by university students and graduates. It seems that in
the future the government will have to think about possible political
solutions if it is to overcome the secessionist threats once and for all
without weakening national unity and integrity.
International Strategies
Despite its preoccupation with internal security problems and
domestic issues, the Indonesian government also pays considerable
attention to the immediate regional and international environment.
Experience in the late 1950s showed that Indonesia's internal security
and stability were closely linked to the stability of the Southeast Asian
region as a whole, as well as to Indonesia's relations with its close
neighbors and with the major powers that have interests in the region.
To protect Indonesia from external threats, the government has
pursued several strategies that include attempts to insulate the
archipelago from external intrusion and interference, improving
Indonesia's defense capability by modernizing the military, fostering
regional cooperation with neighboring Southeast Asian countries, and
promoting confidence-building measures with regard to security
issues in the wider Asia-Pacific region.
Recognition of Archipelagic Status
Indonesia's "archipelagic principle" was first declared by Prime
Minister Djuanda in December 1957. It received international
recognition at the Third Law of the Sea Convention in Jamaica on
December 10, 1982. In all, 144 members of the United Nations signed
that convention, while 41 countries, including the United States,
Turkey, and Greece, refused. The Indonesian parliament ratified the
Law of the Sea Convention (LOSC) through Law Number 17 in 1985
(Djelani 1993).
Called Wawasan Nusantara, or Archipelagic Outlook, the doctrine is
aimed at ensuring the geographical unity of the archipelago as well as
achieving the ideal unity of its peoples. It was introduced in response
to regional rebellions and the Dutch claim on West Irian (Djiwandono
1986). In 1966 it was applied to unifying the armed forces, which
until that time had a fragmented security doctrine based on their
respective areas of specialization (Dino Patti Djalal 1996: 63-67).

12

 Page 505
Wawasan Nusantara is also designed to keep foreign powers from
intruding into Indonesian territorial waters. Before it was introduced,
Indonesia had been fragmented by the international regulation that
gave each island only a limited amount of territorial waters, while the
rest were considered part of the high seas. This rule clearly placed
island countries at a disadvantage and made it difficult for the
Indonesian government to enforce its sovereignty over the entire
archipelago: foreign vessels of all kinds were free to move between
the islands, either to exploit the riches contained in the seas or, more
dangerously, to assist in regional rebellions. As Michael Leifer
argued,
Despite the striking differences between the foreign policy of Sukarno and
Suharto, the experiences of the periods of national revolution and of outer-
island dissidence have institutionalized a common apprehension among
Indonesians of differing political persuasions of the intentions of all
extraregional powers....This concern has been articulated in the official
maxim of the Archipelago Principlewhich represents the seas and straits
surrounding and intersecting Indonesia as maritime bridges or
intersticesand in opposition to regionally located foreign bases. (Leifer
1974: 418)

The Wawasan Nusantara doctrine has been reinforced by an acute

sense of military weakness.
The Indonesian government has shown its determination to enforce
control over its inland straits. On November 16, 1971, in response to a
Japanese initiative within the Subcommittee on Safety of Navigation
of the Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative Organization
proposing that safety of navigation in the Straits of Malacca and
Singapore be subject to supervision by an international board of
management, the governments of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore
announced that safety of navigation in the straits was the
responsibility of the coastal states concerned (Djiwandono 1986;
Leifer 1983b). In September 1988 Indonesia closed Sunda and
Lombok Straits at alternate times, ostensibly because of naval
exercises in those waters. The act was generally interpreted by
observers as a further indication of "Indonesia's long-term goal to
have its sovereignty over the straits accepted, including its
interpretation of rights of passage" (Lowry 1989). The closure of the
straits was seen as "related to U.S. ratification of the protocol
acknowledging the Archipelagic Outlook and the beginning of
measures to incorporate the provisions of the LOSC into national law"
(Lowry 1989).
Conventional Defense
Under the New Order, Indonesia's conventional defense capability has
remained modest, even though the military has been the most

 Page 506
dominant political force in the country. In relation to its population
size and gross domestic product, Indonesia's defense spending has
been the lowest among the ASEAN countries. The absence of clear
and urgent external threats and the pressing needs of economic
development underlie the low priority attached to the purely military
aspects of national security.
Indonesia's defense spending rose from U.S. $1.3 billion in 1975 to
$2.8 billion in 1983. In 1983, military spending, which also includes
the budget for the police, was 4.2 percent of the GDP. (Under the New
Order government the police force is organized as the fourth branch of
the armed forces after the army, the navy, and the air force.) Since
1983, however, Indonesia's defense expenditure has consistently
declined. In 1990 it fell to U.S. $1.7 billion (1.5 percent of the GDP),
despite 7 percent growth in GDP. The decline in Indonesia's defense
spending stands in contrast to the pattern of most other ASEAN
countries. Singapore's defense spending rose from U.S. $251 million
in 1972 to $1.081 billion in 1983 and to $1.640 billion in 1990.
Thailand's defense spending rose from $367 million in 1975 to $1.562
billion in 1983 and to $2.040 billion in 1990. Like Indonesia,
Malaysia reached a peak in defense spending in 1983, when its
defense budget totaled $2.361 billion, but by 1990 the amount had
declined to $1.560 billion in 1990. Interestingly, Indonesia's budget
allocation for defense in 1990 did not differ much from the 1975
figures, whereas all of the other ASEAN countries' defense budgets
had grown many times over: a sevenfold increase in the case of
Singapore and Thailand, and a threefold increase for Malaysia. Even
the Philippines, which had suffered a major economic decline,
registered a twofold increase between 1975 and 1990, from $511
million to $1.052 billion (Dermawan 1992). Although Indonesia's
total defense budget is probably much higher than the official figures,
because of the frequency of off-budget funding, it does not really
affect Indonesia's real defense capability. Off-budget funds are used
mostly to improve the living standard of the troops and their families
and as a source of graft for officers, rather than to buy arms.
With its limited defense budget, Indonesia has kept a relatively small
military, stressing its mobility and efficiency. Currently the armed
forces, minus the police, have a total of 278,000 active members. Of
these, 212,000 are in the army, 42,000 in the navy, and 24,000 in the
air force. The police force has 180,000 members. The army is by far
the largest and most important branch of the armed forces, reflecting
its dual function in society. Both the navy and the air force are
relatively undeveloped.
In the past few years, however, Indonesia's defense expenditure has

 Page 507
gone up. Most of the money has been used to modernize the weapons
systems, such as by acquiring 31 frigates from former East Germany
and two squadrons of Hawk fighter aircrafts from Britain. In 1994
Indonesia's military expenditure was $2.4 billion and in 1995, $2.8
billion. Nevertheless, because of the economic growth, the 1994 and
1995 military expenditures were only 1.5% and 1.6%, respectively, of
the annual GDP (International Institute for Strategic Studies 1996:
182). The recent military purchases, intended to strengthen the navy
and air force, are partly a response to the fluidity and uncertainty of
the wider regional order in the post-Cold War era. The modest
increases in Indonesia's defense spending and arms acquisitions does
not follow the general pattern among Northeast and Southeast Asian
countries, where the increases have been much higher.
Bilateral Cooperation with Neighboring Countries
To ensure its security from potential subversive threats coming from
external sources, the New Order government has relied primarily on
fostering friendly relations with neighboring countries. It has used a
variety of means to this end, such as strengthening bilateral ties,
engaging in bilateral military exercises, participating in regional
cooperation, and promoting multilateral security dialogues.
One of the first acts of the New Order government was to end the
confrontation with Malaysia and then to cofound ASEAN with four
other Southeast Asian countries, namely Malaysia, the Philippines,
Singapore, and Thailand. To ensure the security of their mutual
borders, Indonesia and Malaysia signed a Border Crossing Agreement
in May 1967. Under the agreement the two countries undertook to set
up border check-posts along their Kalimantan border. A total of 27
posts were set up, 15 located in Sarawak, 3 in Sabah, and 9 within
Indonesian territory. The agreement was specifically aimed at
suppressing communist and other left-wing insurgents on both sides
of the border (Anwar 1994).
Indonesia and Malaysia have built very close bilateral defense
cooperation, engaging in regular joint military exercises. Indonesia
also developed similar arrangements with the other ASEAN countries.
Although ASEAN is not a defense organization (it specifically
excludes multinational defense cooperation from its agenda), there
already exists a network of bilateral and trilateral military ties within
the association. These military ties serve many purposes, the most
important being to foster mutual understanding. Bilateral and trilateral
military cooperation is also important for dealing with common
problems in border areas, especially

 Page 508
maritime problems such as piracy, smuggling, drug trafficking, and
navigational safety.
Regional Cooperation and Strategies
In addition to building good bilateral relations, Indonesia and its
noncommunist Southeast Asian neighbors have developed regional
cooperation through ASEAN. For Indonesia, the primary function of
ASEAN was initially to restore its credibility in the region in the wake
of the confrontation against Malaysia, as well as its credibility in the
international community as a whole. That credibility was very
important for Indonesia, particularly for its efforts to attract foreign
investment.
ASEAN also serves a very important security function for Indonesia.
At the time of the regional rebellions, neighboring countries that were
hostile to Jakarta actively assisted the regional rebels and even
allowed their territories to be used by foreign military powers against
Indonesia. For instance, the rebels received financial help, arms
assistance, and political asylum from Malaya and Singapore. An
American pilot from the U.S. base in the Philippines was shot down in
Ambon while carrying out an air bombing raid against Indonesia in
support of the rebel cause. By developing close relations with the
neighboring countries, particularly within a regional association that
forbids its members to interfere in each other's internal affairs,
Indonesia helps create a peaceful and stable regional environment for
itself. Similarly, countries that in the past had felt threatened by
Indonesia also began to feel relatively secure, thus becoming less
likely to adopt defense strategies that Jakarta would see as
threatening.
The signing in 1976 of the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in
Southeast Asia, forbidding the threat or use of force so that members
have to settle their disputes through peaceful means, has enhanced
regional security. Although many bilateral disputes have remained
unresolved, it is now becoming unthinkable that an ASEAN country
would go to war against a fellow ASEAN member for any reason.
This situation has led observers to conclude that ASEAN has
developed into some kind of a security community. ASEAN was
never intended as a vehicle for regional integration; rather, it was
designed to enhance the members' respective national interests. Still,
the association has developed its own dynamics and has become the
focus for a regional identity. Largely because of its role in enhancing
both national and regional security, ASEAN has become an
indispensable regional institution. This reality has gradually
transformed the members' perceptions of their national and regional
identities and of the link between the two. The development of a
pluralistic security community, in which force is no

 Page 509
longer an option in resolving disputes, certainly supports the notion of
the growth of a community among the original ASEAN members
(Alagappa 1995c).
At the same time ASEAN can be regarded as serving a realist security
function for Indonesia. The presence of a shield of friendship around
Indonesia is regarded as a cordon sanitaire against possible threats
emanating from outside the region. Not only has ASEAN prevented
the outbreak of conflicts among the member countries, but also, and
equally important, it has helped to contain extraregional threats. This
fact has enabled the Indonesian government to devote most of its
attention and resources to the country's internal problems and
development and to maintain a relatively small and undeveloped
defense force (Anwar 1994).
In addition to its role within ASEAN, Indonesia has sought to enhance
its national security through the promotion of a more autonomous
regional order, in which the role of foreign military powers would be
significantly reduced if not removed entirely. At Indonesia's insistence
the Bangkok Declaration of 1967 that established ASEAN specified
that foreign military bases were only temporary in nature and would
remain only at the specific request of the host countries. Of even
greater importance to Indonesian security, those bases were not be
used against other countries in the region.
Indonesia has been an enthusiastic supporter of the ZOPFAN concept,
introduced by Malaysia in 1971. ZOPFAN's most important
components are the principle of pacific settlement of disputes, a
Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapons Free Zone (SEANWFZ), and
freedom from foreign intervention. Indonesia's promotion of the
regional resilience concept within the ASEAN circle is clearly aimed
at increasing regional members' responsibility for their own regional
security and reducing their need to depend on external military powers
for protection. All these activities clearly reflect Indonesia's desire to
exclude external military presence from the region, a goal shared by
all the country's leaders from the early days of independence to the
present day, regardless of political persuasion (Lemhanas 1985).
Indonesia at first tended to view the Five Power Defence
Arrangements (FPDA) between Britain, Australia, New Zealand,
Malaysia, and Singapore with suspicion, seeing it as aimed primarily
at containing Indonesia. In recent years, however, Indonesia's attitude
toward the FPDA and other military alliances in the region has
probably changed. As noted earlier, in 1995 Indonesia signed a
Framework of Security Agreement with Australia. As Ikrar Nusa
Bhakti argued,

 Page 510
Whether it is realized or not, by the signing of the agreement on
maintaining security, Indonesia is indirectly, through Australia, connected
with a pattern of treaties that Australia has established with all its
immediate neighbors and external powers....FPDA, Joint Declaration
Principles between Australia and Papua New Guinea, and Australia, New
Zealand and the United States (ANZUS). It means that Indonesia has not
only indirectly become part of Western alliances, but also has a part in
Australia's new forward defense strategy. (Bhakti 1996: 9)

The signing of the agreement with Australia indicates a shift in

Indonesia's ''free and active" foreign policy, clearly as a response to
the new realities in the region, in addition to its desire to put the
volatile bilateral relations between Jakarta and Canberra on a more
solid foundation.
Indonesia attaches considerable importance to the development of
broader regional security dialogues, both through official channels
(first track) and via more informal channels involving academics,
government officials, and military officers in their private capacity
(second track). It plays an active role in the ASEAN Regional Forum
(ARF). The government regards the ARF as the first-track approach to
Asia-Pacific multilateral security dialogue. To represent the second-
track approach, the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia-
Pacific (CSCAP) was established. Through these multilateral security
dialogues, all participants hope that they can ensure peace and
stability in the wider Asia-Pacific region. Both ARF and CSCAP can
be seen as the most recent examples of the liberal institutional
processes that are currently gaining force in the Asia-Pacific region.
Finally, the Indonesian government maintains its security by playing
an active role in regional conflict resolution and prevention. Because
the present Indonesian government sees its security as inextricably
tied to the security of the region as a whole, it has taken a proactive
role in various regional initiatives aimed at resolving existing conflicts
and preventing new ones. For example, Indonesia tried to resolve the
Cambodian conflict by holding "informal meetings" in Jakarta of the
four Cambodian factions. Since 1989 Indonesia has hosted six
"workshops on the management of conflict in the South China Sea,"
bringing together representatives of all claimants. The workshops are
informal in nature and are not designed to resolve the conflicting
jurisdictional claims. Instead, they are mostly intended as confidence-
building exercises. The hope is that identifying common grounds for
cooperation will allow the participants to defuse and contain the South
China Sea conflict.

 Page 511

Conclusion
Indonesia's conceptions of security are comprehensive and
multidimensional, encompassing both the external and the internal
dimensions. Indonesia's view of the outside world, though
characterized by long-held suspicion of the major powers, does not
entirely fit the realist model. Because of Indonesia's geographical
fragmentation and its basic military weakness, the strategy adopted to
insulate the country from hostile external forces has relied mainly on
diplomacy and regional cooperation.
In the past three decades the Indonesian government has not been
greatly concerned with direct military threats coming from outside.
Instead, the government in Jakarta has been preoccupied with various
internal sources of insecurity. These internal threats and challenges
cannot be met by straightforward military means; rather, they require
a range of policies and strategies that judiciously combine persuasion,
force, and development efforts.
Unlike in the more established societies in the West, where political,
economic, and military issues are largely considered separate,
Indonesia regards all these issues as inextricably linked. Economic
development is not viewed simply as a means to improve welfare, but
rather as the only way to guarantee political stability, regime security,
and national security. In the same way there is no clear separation
between internal and external security concerns. As the confrontation
with Malaysia during President Sukarno's rule showed, internal
political instability can lead directly to regional instability. Because it
is the largest country in Southeast Asia, Indonesia recognizes that
internal political upheaval would equally endanger the security of
neighboring countries. Such a spillover of instability could take the
form of an adventurous foreign policy on the part of the Indonesian
government to divert attention from internal conflicts, or it could
cause an influx of refugees from the archipelago into neighboring
countries.
Putting one's own house in good order, as exemplified by the pursuit
of national resilience, is an important national and regional security
strategy. Another factor in ensuring regional security is the
development of regional cooperation. Indonesia puts a lot of faith in
the ability of ASEAN to prevent the outbreak of conflicts and to
contain bilateral frictions so that they do not lead to open warfare.
Within ASEAN the security of the subregion is no longer perceived in
zero-sum terms, and the use of force as an instrument of foreign
policy has been mutually renounced. It can therefore be argued that
among the ASEAN members,

 Page 512
realist approaches to security have been tempered by or have given
way to liberal institutionalist ones.
Indonesia's preoccupation with its own internal affairs has clearly
contributed to its commitment to ASEAN. Although that commitment
has helped foster the stability of the region as a whole, it has not fully
resolved Indonesia's internal contradictions. On the one hand, the
government's emphasis on internal sources of insecurity has led it to
pursue a development-oriented policy in all aspects of national life.
That policy has improved overall social welfare and maintained
national unity and political stability. On the other hand, the approach
has also encouraged the government, and especially the military, to
exaggerate the extent and nature of domestic threats as a way to keep
political control over the country. Although this strategy may give the
government a sense of security in the short term, it will undoubtedly
lead to instability in the long term, because the people will not tolerate
forever all the rules and limitations that govern their lives in the name
of stability and development.
In fact, the economic crisis that has gripped the country since late
1997 has undone much of the development that had occurred over the
last twenty years, causing severe hardship to the people and leading to
protests and demonstrations in many parts of the country. The
economic crisis has also been joined and aggravated by the issue of
political succession and cronyism that came to a head in the lead-up to
the election of Suharto in March 1998 to a seventh term. The
president has been given wide powers to deal with internal security
problems, and the military has warned it will not tolerate public
protests and violence. These developments suggest that domestic
concerns will continue to feature prominently in Indonesian security
thinking and behavior for quite some time to come.


 Page 513

16
Malaysia
Reinventing The Nation
K. S. Nathan
Malaysia's security practice reflects the struggle to build a nation out
of a state inherited from British colonialisman effort that is premised
on a broad notion of security incorporating political, military,
economic, social, cultural, and psychological dimensions. Malaysian
conceptions of national security are therefore informed by factors of
history, geography, Malay nationalism and ethnoreligious identity, the
goal of national unity and integration, the vision of becoming an
industrialized country, and a strategic interest in shaping the
immediate regional as well as the international environment. The
drive to modernize, industrialize, regionalize, and globalize has
impelled the national leadership to redefine and reinvent the nation by
infusing a new sense of purpose and direction intended to strengthen
national security as well as regional peace and prosperity.
The conceptualization and formulation of national security in
Malaysia evidences a pattern that is not dissimilar to that in other
developing countries where state and national boundaries are products
of Western colonialism. In Malaysia, the state has definitely come
before the nation. A major task of postindependence policy makers
has been to create a nation out of the pluralistic state inherited from
British colonial rule. The concept of "Malaysia" and conceptions of
national security, therefore, embody the interplay between "nation"
and "state." Indeed, in Malaysia "authority and sovereignty have run
ahead of self-conscious national identity and cultural integration''
(Rejai and Enloe 1969: 140).


 Page 514
It is pertinent to note here the multiethnic makeup of Malaysia (55
percent Malay, 30 percent Chinese, and 10 percent Indians with
Kadazans, Ibans, Dayaks, and others making up the remaining 5
percent) and the problems arising therefrom. The Malays, who barely
constituted the majority at the time of independence in 1957, consider
themselves (along with the other natives) to be indigenous peoples
entitled to certain rights and privileges that are not available to the
Chinese and Indians, who are considered immigrant races. Malay
survival and political domination and the resentment of the same by
the other ethnic groups are constant themes in Malaysian politics that
influence security thinking and policy.
The Malaysian state, through its central decision makers, formulates
national security policies that are rooted in its own unique historical
experience, in the way the nation-state developed after the attainment
of independence, and in the institutional, constitutional, political, and
socioeconomic structures inherited by the nationalist elites. The
pursuit of national security in the Malaysian context is governed not
only by the emphasis on state survivalrequiring such strategies as
deterrence and balance of powerbut also by ethnonational security
doctrines that have evolved from long-term considerations of group
survival and which inform the nation's mission in domestic and
international relations (Sandler 1995: 263).
Indeed, Malaysian national security conceptions are inseparable from
the country's experience with British colonialism. Malaysian history
provides a permanent guide to national decision makers. It shapes
their view of security, the significance they assign to it in executing
their tasks, and the limits governing their formulation and
implementation of security paradigms in the real world. The relevance
of history in Malaysia's security formulations is evidenced by the
constitutional, political, and economic structures that the ruling elite
have developed to protect and promote the multifaceted interests of a
multiethnic society. Security conceptions invariably incorporate
historical, psychological, and cultural dimensions. The current prime
minister, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, who has been in office since 1981,
has defined security as follows:
When we talk about national security, the picture that usually comes to
mind is that of armed soldiers manning border posts or fighting in the
jungle....But security is not just a matter of military capability. National
security is inseparable from political stability, economic success and social
harmony. Without these all the guns in the world cannot prevent a country
from being overcome by its enemies, whose ambition can be fulfilled
without even firing a single shot. All they need really is to subvert the
people and set up a puppet regime.

 Page 515
Clearly economic difficulties are serious threats to national security.
Failure to understand this threat may result in a cycle of recession followed
by political instability, security threats and even greater recession. The
skillful management of the economy and clear thinking are therefore an
integral part of the strategy for national security.

This conceptualization of security comprises both domestic and

external dimensions. The concern with domestic security is
manifested in the continued emphasis on internal peace, law, and
order, which is considered vital to the daily business of governing and
fulfilling the needs and demands of a multiracial society. Internal
tranquillity is a sine qua non for development and progress. Hence
legal instruments, even if they are draconian, are deemed essential for
legitimating the government's authority and its capacity to manage a
plural society like Malaysia. Conceptions of external security,
however, are based on an assessment of the immediate threats and of
the operation of the regional and global balances of power. In this
sense, national security connotes the idea of strategic survival
internally as well as externally. This chapter focuses on the domestic,
regional, and international foundations of Malaysia's national security
practice.
Domestic Foundations
All societies are influenced by their own past record as they cope with
internal and external challenges and formulate social, political, and
economic structures and policies designed for self-survival. Indeed,
some societies are more strongly influenced than others by their
historical experienceespecially when its psychological, ideological,
and political impact has been so profound that it is impossible to
divorce the past from present and future security conceptions.
For Malaysia, the strongest ideological compulsion driving its
domestic and foreign policies derives from the bitter experience with
the communist insurgency from 1948 until 1960. Defeating internal
communism and containing international communism became a
cardinal principle of strategy for Malaysian decision makers entrusted
with the security of the nation. The success of the Maoist revolution in
China in 1949 heightened fears of a Beijing-led Asian communism
engulfing the entire Southeast Asian region. That apprehension was
strengthened by the ethnic character of the Malaysian communists,
nearly all of whom were Chinese. Furthermore, the presence of a
sizable ethnic Chinese population in Malaysia fueled official concern
about their potential role as fifth columnists in the service of the
Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) and the Communist Party of
China (CPC).

 Page 516
The essential nature of the Malayan communist political agendawhose
primary objective since its formation in 1930 was "to carry on the
struggle for national liberation, formulate a military program for the
overthrow of imperialism and feudal aristocracy and to establish the
Soviet Republic of Malaya by the coordinated efforts of the proletariat
and peasantry" (Hanrahan 1971: 43)was anathema to the Malays, who
generally viewed Chinese involvement in the anticolonial and
communist terrorist activities as "assisting one form of Chinese
domination to replace another" (Fisk and Osman-Rani 1982: 9). It is
quite apparent, then, that ethnicity has combined with ideology to
produce a particular security orientation since the early days of
independence. Malaysia's postindependence security decision makers
incorporated this historical, ideological, and ethnic security
orientation into policies and strategies for molding the nation. The
formation of the CPM in 1930, the rejection by the United Malays
National Organization (UMNO) of the Malayan Union proposals put
forward by the British, and UMNO's suspicions regarding the
program of the Independence of Malaya Party (IMP)both of which
entailed broader political and citizenship rights for non-
Malayscumulatively bore testimony to rising Malay political
consciousness and pressures for a Malay-led Malaya (later Malaysia)
following independence in 1957. These events also portended
increasing Malay insecurity stemming from political developments in
the years preceding and succeeding World War II. The Japanese
occupation of Malaya from 1942 to 1945 only served as a catalyst to
demands for Malay political leadership of the independence struggle
and for an unchallenged Malay role in shaping the political economy
of Malaysia in the postindependence era. Moreover, British colonial
rule had encouraged the growth of "a Malay bureaucratic class which,
after independence, continued to dominate the key organs of the
statethe bureaucracy, judiciary, military and policeand provided the
leadership of the United Malays National Organization or UMNO"
(Crouch 1993: 136). Thus the referent units of Malaysian security
were to be principally Malay in character and determined almost
exclusively by the Malays, to whom power was transferred
constitutionally by the British colonial masters on August 31, 1957.
The Constitutional Basis
Constitutions are essentially political-legal documents outlining the
powers, functions, and limitations of the social groups and institutions
that compose the body politic at a given time. They reflect the
interests of prevailing power groups in society regardless of the
manner in which they have been constituted. Politically dominant
groups write into na-

 Page 517
tional constitutions their own interests, privileges, ideologies,
aspirations, and goalsall of which establish a framework for a viable
and orderly interaction among various groups in society. Constitutions
as social documents evolve with time, as reflected by amendments.
Nevertheless, certain provisions are regarded as sacrosanct despite
radical changes taking place in society. Amendments affecting
entrenched provisions threaten the security of those groups who have
benefited from special provisions granting them political, economic,
and social privileges vis-à-vis other communities and presumptive
territorial rights to the land.
In short, a nation's constitution can serve as an important source of
national securityeven if that notion is selectively applied to legitimize
the interests of a particular ethnic group. Article 153 of the Federal
Constitutionproviding for special rights and privileges for Malays and
other natives with respect to public-service jobs, education,
scholarships and training, and business licensesremains an entrenched
provision after 40 years of Malaysian independence even though the
political dominance of the Malays remains assured and their economic
position vis-à-vis the non-Malays has significantly improved.

2 Moreover, the concept of Bumiputera (literally, sons of the soil) that

gained currency after the 1969 racial riots, as well as the initiation of
the New Economic Policy (NEP), represent further political attempts
to preserve this entrenched provision even if the economic position of
the Malays has overtaken that of the non-Malays. Article 153 and
Bumiputera must be viewed as two sides of the same coin, with the
purpose of entrenching Malay dominance for as long as that is
possible and thereby strengthening Malay feelings of security in
relation to the other communities in Malaysia.

The citizenship provisions of the Federal Constitution shed additional

light on Malay perceptions of national security. Stringent provisions
under Articles 14 through 31 ensure tight controls over citizenship
acquisition by non-Malays and foreigners, including foreign wives of
Malaysian citizens (Article 15). And whereas it is difficult for foreign
wives to gain citizenship, it is virtually impossible for foreign
husbands (Sinnadurai 1978: 76). Such provisions are designed to
preserve the Malay character of the Malaysian Federationand hence
the constitutional security of the politically dominant Malays.
Ethnicity and Security
Malaysian politics is communal politics. Unless the constitutional,
political, and economic framework that entrenches Bumiputera rights
is changed, it is reasonable to expect the present model of political
development to continue. The prospects of a major shift in favor of
de-

 Page 518
ethnicization of politics must be measured against the strength of
institutions that have become deeply rooted on an ethnic basis.
Political mobilization and participation are officially encouraged
along ethnic lines. The ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition is itself
a political and electoral arrangement along ethnic lines. Thus the
whole notion of individual, group, and organizational security is
closely tied to the communal character of the Malaysian political
system. Attempts to form multiracial conceptions of political security
through multiracial parties have either foundered because of the ethnic
factor or been stifled by official intervention. The compulsion to
protect ethnic security has also found expression in the suppression of
the left in the post-World War II period, thereby virtually eliminating
any prospect of nonethnic ideological discoursethat is, of removing
ethnicity as the basis for approaching and resolving political,
economic, and social issues in Malaysia. Since the late 1960s, and
especially after the May 1969 racial riots, "ethnicity has increasingly
dominated Malaysian political culture" (Sundaram 1989: 36). The
Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia (Malaysian People's Movement), originally
conceived as a multiracial party, has degenerated into essentially a
party promoting Chinese interests. In Sabah, the multiracial Parti
Bersatu Sabah (PBS; Sabah United Party) faced strong challenges
from the federal government in Kuala Lumpur, especially under
Mahathir's premiership, until it was finally ousted from power in
1995. Sabah is now ruled by a state government that is dominated by
UMNO and resembles the ethnically oriented political model in
peninsular Malaysia.
In Malaysia, as in virtually all multiethnic societies, ethnic politics is a
means to an end: political stability, regime security, economic growth
and development, and multiracial peace and harmonyall regarded as
key values in the preservation and promotion of national security.
Given the dominant role of the Malays in Malaysian political life,
Malay security is invariably equated with Malaysian security. Malay
feelings of insecurity are invariably translated into policies and
strategies of coercion and accommodation designed to promote Malay
ethnic interests. More recently, especially under the Mahathir
administration, Malay interests have become more closely linked to
the interests of UMNO (the ruling party).
The New Economic Policy from 1970 to 1990 was a key strategy
through which the Malays attempted to overcome their insecurity in
the aftermath of the 1969 general elections, which appeared to
threaten their political dominance. Strategies of excessive state
interventionism in the 1970s in support of Malay interests were
gradually replaced in the 1980s and 1990s by economic policies that
reduced the state's role in the economy but were motivated by the
same objective of strengthening

 Page 519
Bumiputera control of the Malaysian economy. Such strategies for
Malay ethnic survival and security included "Malaysia Incorporated,"
deregulation, suspension of NEP implementation (Sundaram 1989:
42), and establishment of the Heavy Industries Corporation of
Malaysia (HICOM) for production of Malaysian-made cars. The
government's privatization policy in the mid-1980s was clearly
designed to "accelerate growth, improve efficiency and productivity,
trim the public sector, reduce the government's financial and
administrative role, and redistribute wealth to the Bumiputeras"
(Sundaram 1995: 48).
Although the New Economic Policy has been replaced by the National
Development Policy (NDP), the basic contours of Bumiputera
supremacy in Malaysia's political economy remain intact. The new
UMNO elite, created largely by the New Economic Policy, is loath to
make any concessions that are seen as eroding the privileged position
of the Malays in society, regardless of whether NEP targets have been
achieved or even exceeded. Indeed, even the issue of whether or not
the 1990 NEP targets had been achieved was deemed a matter of
secrecy and "national security" (Means 1991: 189). In the wake of the
1986 elections, which confirmed UMNO's political dominance,
certain party officials continued to tell non-Malays that they were
"playing with fire" by questioning the special position of the Malays.

3 Because the NEP's prime objective was to reduce Malays' economic

insecurity, or alternatively to enhance their economic security, foreign
participation in the Malaysian economy was consciously encouraged
in order to constrain the role of domestic capital, which was largely in
the hands of the Chinese.

Economic nationalism in Malaysia strengthened the link between

Malay ethnicity and Malay economic security (in contrast to a focus
on Malaysian economic security) through the official preference for
transnational capital over domestic Chinese capital, a preference
strongly influenced by concerns about Chinese wealth accumulation
in the nation (Sundaram 1993: 11). If Malaysian security equals
Malay supremacy, then any perceived erosion of that supremacy must
necessarily endanger Malay (and therefore national)
securityregardless of how this equation affects the security of the non-
Malays. A member of the Malay elite, Datuk Abdullah Ahmad,
confirms the linkage between ethnic security and national security by
his strong assertion that Malaysia's political system is premised on
Malay supremacy and that "system breakdown" occurred in 1969 (the
race riots of May 13) when this "sacrosanct social contract" between
the Malays and non-Malays was violated (Ahmad 1988: 5).
Malaysia's political system has often been described as a
consociational arrangement between the principal ethnic groups that
constitute

 Page 520
the nation's population of 20 million. Consociational political models
are based on ethnic compromises arranged by the elites representing
the various ethnic groups. To the extent that those compromises are
seen by the general population as broadly safeguarding their interests,
such a model is politically viable in the Malaysian case. The focus on
Malay ethnic dominance in the Malaysian political system must,
however, be balanced against the system's ability to deliver the goods
to the non-Malays as wella priority reflected in the Alliance/BN
victories in all the general elections held to date, even in the face of
UMNO's gerrymandering of electoral boundaries and its use of "siege
legitimacy" to justify its dominance and tout its unique ability to
"safeguard national security" (Brown 1985: 988-1008). Siege
legitimacy, according to Brown, "implies the need not just to point to
external threats, but also to particular internal cleavages which
constitute potential sources of disunity and vulnerability" (Brown
1985: 998). In the case of the PBS-ruled Sabah, Mahathir appears to
have successfully employed siege legitimacy in the run-up to the 1994
state elections by raising the issue of ethnic strife in Bosnia-
Herzegovina "to evoke fears among Sabahans that Malaysian
Muslims would be oppressed by a predominantly Christian leadership
if PBS were to be reelected'' (Gomez 1996: 94).
Nevertheless, the political record demonstrates the resilience of the
present political framework and its ability to implement the doctrine
of balance in addressing the multifaceted challenges posed by a
multiethnic society. The viability of this framework requires
substantial compromises by the non-Malay populace with regard to
the Malay need for security through political domination. Younger
generations of both Malays and non-Malays, however, might
engender somewhat different notions of national security as the
leveling process attains its goal of erasing differences between race
and economic functionthat is, governmental policies are designed to
encourage economic participation by all ethnic groups and to
discourage monopolization of economic activity by any one particular
ethnic category. To what extent will younger generations of non-
Malays continue to accept this Bumiputera-non-Bumiputera
dichotomy based on Malay dominance? When will ethnicity become
less consequential in deciding the basic political issue of who gets
what, when, and how? Although these questions defy easy answers,
one thing is clear: today the basic domestic structure of Malaysian
security is built around Malay ethnic identity. As one Malaysian
political activist notes: "The classification of Malaysians into
Bumiputeras and non-Bumiputeras has long been an issue of
contention in our political arena. Perhaps no other issue divides our
people as much as this one" (Fan 1995: 175). Indeed, the ideology,
policy, and practice of

 Page 521
"Bumiputeraism" has effectively intervened between Malay
nationalism based on monoethnicity and the emergence of a truly
Malaysian nationalism based on multiethnicityeven after 40 years of
independence. It is therefore hardly surprising that virtually no serious
reference has been made by Malaysian officials, scholars, and analysts
to the existence of a Malaysian nationalism since the formation of
Malaysia in 1963. After four decades of independence, the Malaysian
state-nation is still in the process of building the Malaysian nation-
stateand also a more pluralistic as well as inclusive conception of
national security.
The Malay State, Islam, and Language
The concept of Malaya (later Malaysia) as comprising essentially the
Malay state is embodied in the reference to the country as tanah
Melayu, or Malay land. This basic Malayness was also preserved in
the new name of "Malaysia" when Malaya was expanded to include
Singapore (until 1965) and the North Borneo territories of Sabah and
Sarawak. The identification of race with territory connotes an
important element of security for the majority ethnic group in
Malaysia, especially when that congruence also coincides with
historical reality and political power. The security and sovereignty of
the Malay state are preserved by constitutional provisions pertaining
to the role of the nine Malay sultans, who also serve as heads of the
Muslim religion in their states. The sultans therefore function as
legitimizers of Malay sovereignty over Malaysia, a position that
cannot be challenged under the constitution. In the years preceding
Malayan independence, Malay rulers warned against the erosion of
traditional Malay loyalties by stressing communalismespecially by
pointing out the incompatibility of Islam (embraced by the Malays)
and communism (largely a Chinese phenomenon) (Hua 1983: 98).
Besides the institution of the Malay rulers, the Malay language or
Bahasa Melayu (also known as Bahasa Malaysia) furnishes an
additional tool of legitimacy for Malay dominance of Malaysia. The
use of the national language as the main medium of instruction at all
levels of educationprimary, secondary, and tertiaryas well as the
medium of official communication with government is yet another
integral element of preserving Malay ethnic security and, by
extension, Malay dominance in a multiethnic society in which other
racial groups are individually as well as collectively weaker in the
political domain. Their political weakness appears to be a requirement
for Malay strength and Malay security. The Malaysian state, therefore,
is only a political expression: its political fundamentals are Malay in
origin and evolution. In short, the political basis of Malaysian security
resides in Malay security.
Thus the Malay monarchy, the Muslim religion, and the Malay lan-

 Page 522
guage constitute the major referent units of Malay and, by extension,
Malaysian security. Nevertheless, these basic symbols of Malay
security are subject to political manipulation in the interest of the
rising Malay middle class. Many among that group have migrated
from rural areas in the wake of industrialization, modernization, and
urbanizationall of which are viewed by the ruling government,
especially under Mahathir, as essential to both the transformation of
Malay society and the promotion of Malay competitiveness vis-à-vis
the non-Malays. The urbanization of the Malays, according to
Mahathir, is an integral part of development and hence Malay
security: "The whole process must be planned and executed with
speed and thoroughness to produce a complete and radical change in
the Malays. If this revolution is brought about they would be
rehabilitated and their dilemma would be over" (Mahathir 1970: 114).
The nation would be able to progress without the burden of a Malay
problem.
The constitutional amendments of 1984 and 1993 relating to the
powers of the Malay sovereigns indicate the degree to which
established symbols of Malay sovereignty and security can be
manipulated to achieve specific political agendas (Hari Singh 1995:
187-205). The role of Islam as the official religion of Malaysia is
instructive. The Federal Constitution merely states that Islam is the
"official religion" of the country; freedom of religion for all non-
Muslims, who make up about 50 percent of the population, is also
constitutionally enshrined. Islam's preeminent status is therefore a
source of Malay/Muslim security, and it cannot be challenged under
any circumstances. The Muslim-dominated leadership, however,
practices a secular form of Islam to accommodate the multireligious
sentiments of Malaysian society and, more important, to ensure that
Islam does not become a tool reinforcing Malay backwardness but
instead serves as a vehicle of progress so that the socioeconomic
status of Muslims is at least on a par with non-Muslims. Mahathir was
particularly concerned that the practice of Islam in Malaysia might
produce the opposite effect of reinforcing Malay feelings of insecurity
and inferiority in urban environments, which, at least until recently,
have been dominated by the more sophisticated and better-educated
non-Malays (Zainah Anwar 1987: 79). Thus the UMNO-led
government is wary of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party's (PAS) goal
of establishing an Islamic state in Malaysia. PAS's superficial
understanding of the role of modern science, technology,
industrialization, education, and administration inspires little
confidence among the broad Malay segment or among the non-
Malays with regard to its ability to provide a viable alternative to the
UMNO and Barisan Nasional style of governance (Muzaffar 1987:
59-64). The country's first prime minister's view of

 Page 523
Islam in a multireligious context is particularly instructive in
conveying the secular, liberal, modernist, and rather universalistic
approach of the Malaysian government with respect to religion:
"Islam means peace, love, cooperation, honesty, punctuality, hard
work, honor and abstinence from licentious behavior. Islam stands for
complete understanding between all peoples and all races" (Tunku
Abdul Rahman 1986: 142-43).
Thus Malay/Muslim security is closely tied to official and, more
precisely, modernist interpretations of Islam that reinforce ethnic
security by focusing on nationalism rather than religion. Modernists
reject theocracy as being incompatible with development and
modernity (Mehmet 1990: 99). Deviance in the form of sectarianism
or contradictory interpretations of the Koran is strongly discouraged,
if not penalized, to preserve the ultimate goal of Muslim unity.
Official concerns that disunity among the Muslims would expose
them to political exploitation by outsiders as well as weaken them as a
group tend to find expression in strong pronouncements and threats of
severe sanctions including the use of the Internal Security Act to
enforce compliance. The activities of the Al-Arqam movement,
headed by Ashaari Mohamed, were viewed as a threat to national
security because the sect threatened the core of Muslim orthodoxy as
practiced in Malaysia. The banning of Al-Arqam, the extraction of
confessions from its leadership, the suppression of religious literature
and publications by Muslim individuals and organizations that are
deemed to subvert Malay/Muslim unity and securityall provide strong
evidence of the link between race and religion as referent units of
national security in a domestic context.
Under the Mahathir administration, concerted efforts have been made
to adopt a more uniform approach to religious issues and to reduce the
diversity in practice that results from local control over Islamic
affairs. Federal control over publications, imports, police, and internal
security has enabled the center to circumvent problems arising from
security has enabled the center to circumvent problems arising from
the diversity of local actions (Means 1991: 103).

4 The Islamization of public policy under federal authority has

enabled Mahathir to integrate the role of Islam as an instrument of
national security. The federalization of Islam, however, must
inevitably impinge on the traditional authority and role of the sultan as
head of Islamic affairs in his own stateeroding to some extent the
Malay potentate's significance as a referent unit of Malay security.
Furthermore, the constitutional amendments, which were designed to
"clip the wings of the rulers," led to an erosion of their stature and
influence that in turn "diminished their constraining role in tempering
the exercise of executive powers" (Hoong Phun Lee 1995: 119).

 Page 524
Federalism and National Security
Malaysian federalism is a means to an end: the preservation of the
territorial integrity and unity of all its component parts made up of the
nine Malay states (Perlis, Kedah, Kelantan, Terengganu, Perak,
Selangor, Negeri Sembilan, Pahang, and Johor), two of the three
former Straits Settlements (Penang and Malacca), and the two Borneo
territories (Sabah and Sarawak). The fourteenth component, the
Federal Territories comprising greater Kuala Lumpur and Labuan,
completes the political structure of federal government in Malaysia.
The security of the federation stems from centralized control of key
spheres such as finance, internal security (control over police and
armed forces), foreign policy, and education.
This federalist notion of national security does not tolerate any
attempts by state governments that could rupture the political and
territorial unity of the federation, including efforts that are deemed
secessionist by the federal center. In 1965, the removal of Stephen
Kalong Ningkan as chief minister of Sarawak was preceded by an
official declaration of emergency in that state. In Kelantan, similar
emergency powers were used to dismiss the PAS-led BN coalition in
favor of a profederal state government (Crouch 1996: 104-6). In
Sabah, concerted pressure by the central government under Mahathir
to subvert the PBS state government of Sabah in the 1980s, and
especially after the PBS left the BN coalition in 1990, cumulatively
point to the conclusion that federal resources and authoritarian
measures will be employed with total effect to support a state if it is
pro-Kuala Lumpur or to frustrate its ability to rule if it is deemed
antifederal. Moreover, the centralized control over the police, the
armed forces, and national intelligence gives the federal government
effective instruments to thwart perceived threats to internal security
arising from state-based intransigence. Federal-state tensions
following the handing over of Labuan to the federal government on
April 16, 1984, by the Harris Salleh government required the PBS to
expend much of its energy to fight federal accusations that it was
attempting to pull Sabah out of the Malaysian federation. When
Mahathir decided that the PBS under Joseph Pairin Kitinganleader of
the predominant ethnic Kadazan communitywas inimical to federal
interests, the state's leadership crumbled under the weight of federal
opposition. From Mahathir's perspective, the removal of the Kadazan-
led multiracial PBS and the installation of a profederal UMNO-based
state government in Sabah since 1995 have considerably eased
tensions that could have undermined the internal security of that
"recalcitrant" state.
In the context of federal-state relations, the three notable cases of
Sarawak, Kelantan, and Sabah illuminate the problem of state
formation

 Page 525
in a situation where the pursuit of security, in the form of a drive to
homogenize and silence differences, has become a crucial aspect of
nation-building (Pasha 1996: 288). The "national security"
requirement is used to justify draconian measures such as the Internal
Security Actas well as other restrictive legislation including the
Sedition Act, the Official Secrets Act, and the Printing Press
Ordinancefor the declared objective of maintaining public order and
interracial peace and harmony.
Singapore as a National Security Concern
If history, identity, and nationalism are important ideational variables
in explaining the security disposition of Asian states, then the role of
Singapore as a predominantly Chinese state and its geopolitical
proximity to Malay-dominated Malaysia provide significant insights
into ethnic-oriented perceptions of Malaysian national security. The
then Malaysian Defense Minister, Najib Tun Razak, aptly remarked
that one of the root problems in bilateral relations is the mutual
tendency "to carve out our perceptions towards one another based on
Malay-Chinese racial and ethnic preconceptions" (Razak 1995: 19).
Malay fears of Chinese dominance after Singapore's merger with
Malaysia in 1963 formed the basis of the decision to expel Singapore
from the Malaysian Federation two years later. The city-state's
membership in the Malaysian Federation had tipped the ethnic scales
in favor of the Chinese, whose economic status and role then posed
serious threats to Malay identity and self-confidence. Separation was
therefore viewed as a strategy to restore ethnic balance in favor of the
Malays while strengthening their feeling of political security.
Although Singapore-Malaysia relations have been moderated
somewhat by the ASEAN factor, bilateral frictions arise periodically
from the weight of history, geographical proximity, and the political
economy of the two neighbors.
In the context of the ethnic sensitivities on both sides of the quarter-
mile-long causeway linking the two ASEAN states, both governments
have attempted to enhance their relative national security through
confidence-building measures including frequent high-level
exchanges, visits, and agreements for mutual cooperation. Such
measures include the SIJORI development project involving
Singapore, the southern Malaysian state of Johor, and the Indonesian
island of Riauunderscoring the notion of joint development as a
vehicle for enhancing mutual security. Additionally, bilateral military
cooperation between Malaysia and Singapore via the Five Power
Defence Arrangements (FPDA) is a confidence-building measure
aimed at neutralizing mutual threat perceptions affecting national
security (Baginda 1995: 21). Nevertheless, intermittent frictions
rooted in history, nationalism, ethnicity, the city-

 Page 526
state's access to water supply from Johor, and growing economic
competition stemming from Malaysia's rapid industrialization

5 continue to affect mutual perceptions of national security and well-

being. Thus, geopolitical proximity requires a continuous commitment
to mutual understanding of each other's problems, needs, and
perceptions for the preservation of national security on both sides of
the causeway.

Development as Security
Development is a vital theme in the Malaysian government's approach
to national security. Indeed, security cannot be defined without
development. The very notion of comprehensive security as the
philosophical basis of national security and development is rooted in
the strategy to defeat the communist threat to Malaysia. The
comprehensive approach emphasizes not only military actions against
the communist guerrillas, but also political, administrative, economic,
social, and cultural measures to consolidate national security.
The philosophy of development permeates all the five-year plans,
including the most recent, the Seventh Malaysia Plan (1996-2000).
The First Malaysia Plan (1966-70) approached national security
through its objectives of promoting the economic and social
integration of the peoples and states of Malaysia, raising income
levels, employment opportunities, and education and training
facilities, and diversifying the economy to reduce dependence on
traditional commodities like rubber and tin, which at that time were
the mainstays of the Malaysian economy.6 The Seventh Malaysia
Plan, however, has considerably broadened the economic foundations
of Malaysian national security with its emphasis on a holistic
approach to development. These are the plan's objectives:
 1. Convert industries and production processes from labor intensive
to capital, technology, and knowledge intensive.
2. Ensure sustained growth and balanced development.
3. Adopt a global approach to industrialization.
4. Reduce poverty and income disparities between ethnic and
income groups and regions.
5. Develop a viable Bumiputera Commercial and Industrial
Community (BCIC).
6. Accelerate privatization to improve efficiency and productivity
and reduce the burden of the public sector, while at the same time
strengthening Bumiputera participation in the economy through
greater equity in ownership and management control.

 Page 527
7. Radically transform the Malaysian economy from input-driven
(primarily through investments) to productivity-driven by
enhancing the contribution of "total factor productivity" (TFP)that
is, additional output generated by upgrading skills, education, and
organizational, production, and management technologies.
8. Place greater emphasis on human resource development,
research and development, science and technology, and the critical
role of information technologyall of which would drive Malaysia's
national development and international competitiveness in the
context of globalization.
9. Integrate the economic, social, and environmental aspects into
the development process.
10. Protect the environment while improving the quality of life in
its social, cultural, and psychological aspects.
11. Pursue all these goals via strategies marked by flexibility and
pragmatism as well as creativity and innovation.

The role of the state as an agent of development, and therefore of

security, is viewed as crucial by ruling elites in the developing world.
Rapid advances in science and technology must be directly addressed
by the state in terms of its capability for innovation. Thus,
strengthening of the state virtually coincides with the development of
national resilience in the political, economic, and sociocultural
dimensions (Alagappa 1987a: 20). And with the launching of the
Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) on August 1, 1996, Prime Minister
Mahathir has now directly linked national security with technological
progress. The Malaysian government sees multimedia as the strategic
sector to achieve Vision 2020, that is, the attainment of developed-
country status through productivity-led growth.8 Malaysia intends to
play a key role in the globalizing and harmonizing forces of the
information age, thereby contributing to a convergence rather than a
clash of civilizations. Indeed, economic and technological security are
increasingly informing, redefining, and even supplanting traditional
political-military conceptions of national security.
Vision 2020
The role of leadership in reinventing conceptions of security that
reflect a dynamic balance between domestic capacity and external
performance has never been more evident than under the premiership
of Mahathir bin Mohamad. In 1991, Mahathir articulated his vision of

 Page 528
Malaysia in the next 30 years in a speech entitled "Malaysia: The Way
Forward"a conceptualization of national security combining elements
of idealism and realism. Vision 2020, as both conception and strategy
of national security, espouses the following agenda: to create a united
Malaysian nation; to promote an outward-looking Malaysian society;
to infuse society with strong moral and ethical values; to ensure that
the state is democratic, liberal and tolerant, caring, economically just
and equitable, progressive, and prosperous; and to develop an
economy that is competitive, dynamic, robust, and resilient.

The externalization of Malaysia's internal capacity has several

dimensions:
· Political: a stable Malaysia geared toward resolving political,
economic, social, religious, and ethnic issues within a broad
framework of consensus and compromise
· Ideological: a growing national confidence in Malaysian values,
general acceptance if not tolerance of democracy Malaysian-style,
commitment to the basic values of a free enterprise economy, and a
legacy of success in overcoming the communist threat to the nation
· Economic: a country that has by and large achieved the
redistributive targets of the twenty-year New Economic Policy
resulting in an economically confident Malay (Bumiputera)
community that is presumably more sensitive to the needs of other
Malaysians
· Social: a strengthened feeling among all Malaysians that the
causes leading to the May 13, 1969, racial riots have been
addressed and that a similar recurrence can be averted by good
political management, mutual tolerance, and the promotion of
 interracial goodwill and harmony
· Regional: the development of political, economic, and security
mechanisms for expanding cooperation and reducing regional
tensionthat is, the creation of an atmosphere that is conducive to
Malaysian national interests
· International: a growing capacity to articulate issues that affect a
wider spectrum of humanity in line with changing global interests
and priorities (Nathan 1995: 220-37).
Five key political and economic indicators have motivated Vision
2020 and served as the domestic impetus for reinventing the
"Malaysian Nation" and reconceptualizing national security. The first
element is

 Page 529
continuing political stability under a Barisan Nasional coalition
government that has basically been ruling the country ever since
independence. This 40-year record of stability, economic
development, and social harmony remains unmatched. Although
opportunities for the emergence of alternatives have certainly been
limited, previous election results indicate that the BN enjoys a clear
mandate to govern on behalf of all Malaysians. That mandate, in turn,
has introduced a high degree of stability in planning for growth and
developmentindeed, Malaysia is now developing a master plan to
enable it to achieve the status of a fully developed country. Such a
visionary formulation would be virtually impossible in a politically
unstable context rife with multiethnic tension and conflict with all the
attendant consequences for economic progress. A rising confidence in
Malaysia's political stability and economic prosperity is apparently
driving the new conception of national security.
The second element is the country's creditable record of economic
performance, which has inspired local and foreign investors'
confidence in the Malaysian economy. The overall success of
"Malaysia Incorporated"that is, the privatization policy the
government introduced in 1983has boosted the confidence of
Malaysians (especially Malays) in their ability to manage the national
economy within the framework of broad national interests. Moreover,
the creation of a narrow industrial base with heavy external inputs
during the first Outline Perspective Plan (OPP1, 1971-90, also known
as the NEP) stimulated indigenous interest in further Malaysianizing
the progress toward industrialization under the Sixth Malaysia Plan
(SMP, 1991-95) and the second Outline Perspective Plan (OPP2,
1991-2000). A notable feature of the National Development Policy,
which replaced the NEP in 1990, is that it emphasizes growth, puts no
time limits on redistribution, and does not specify numerical targets.
10

The third element is the significant measure of national pride arising

from decisions taken under Mahathir's leadership to develop heavy
industry and to produce Malaysia's own national car, the Proton Saga,
whose credibility and international marketability are now beyond
dispute. The initial success in car manufacturing has encouraged
newer designs and models for the domestic and external markets. This
achievement, combined with the rapid growth of the manufacturing
sector, is the major contributor to Malaysia's impressive GNP growth
rates, averaging 8 to 10 percent in the last eight years. The fourth
element, industrial progress and a general improvement in economic
welfare, has been accompanied by labor disciplinethat is, a sharp
reduction in strikes by unionized labor during Mahathir's tenure since
1981, due either to wage increases or to fear of reprimand from the
gov-

 Page 530
ernment. The fifth element is the government's readiness to use the
Internal Security Actas it did in October 1987 under ''Operation
Lalang" and in connection with the arrest in September 1994 and
again in 1996 of leaders of the banned Al-Arqam movementcombined
with the virtual absence of a unified voice to protest government
excesses. All these factors have led to political stability. Vision 2020
draws upon these internal dimensions of national strength to build the
external aspirations of the Malaysian nation.
In essence, Mahathir's "new thinking" in foreign policy rests firmly on
the assumption of a stable, Malay-led, multiethnic Malaysia that is
capable of satisfying national aspirations across a wide spectrum of
competing demands and interests. Essentially, this new
approachindeed, assertivenessin foreign affairs is directly linked to a
strengthened feeling of national security. Furthermore, the concept of
planned developmentthe attainment of rational targets based on
competition and free enterprise as envisaged under Vision 2020will
eventually reduce NEP-based racial discontent (on the part of non-
Malays) and presumably erase the prevailing Bumiputera-non-
Bumiputera dichotomy in Malaysia's political economy.

11 Vision 2020 rests on an internal foundation composed of three key

elements: first, national integration based on multiethnic cooperation
and partnership as well the trend toward deracialization; second, the
effective management of all forms of extremism, actual and potential,
along the dimensions of race, religion, ideology, or even political and
economic doctrine; and third, the creation of a climate that will propel
Malaysia toward economic excellence in the next 30 years through
wise management of the nation's financial, industrial, natural, and
human resources, increased cooperation between the public sector and
private sector, and a significant role for foreign investment in the
nation's industrial transformation.12 This internal foundation, built
upon past and present achievements, is bound to affect the external
dimensions of national security as Mahathir pursues his desire for a
more activist role in international relations.

Regional Foundations
Malaysia's strategic survival during the Cold War required a keen
appreciation of linkage dynamics operating at the domestic, regional,
and international levels. At the time of independence it was patently
clear to Malaysian policy makersespecially the prime minister, Tunku
Abdul Rahman, who was for all practical purposes the manager of
foreign policythat strategies for national survival must be aligned with
regional and global strategic trends. The Tunku opted for a two-
pronged ap-

 Page 531
proach: a firm stand against international communism and a strong
pro-Western ideological, economic, political, and military orientation.
Anticommunism and Regional Security
The Tunku's foreign policy itself was largely conditioned by
Malaysia's own historical experience in fighting communist
subversion within the country during the Malayan Emergency from
1948 to 1960. The Malaysian leader's keen understanding of
communist strategy strongly influenced his conception of national
security at the time of Malayan independence. At the domestic level,
the Tunku had to ensure a stable, peaceful, harmonious, and
prosperous multiethnic nation that would in turn provide a strong
foundation on which to build the external dimensions of Malaysia's
national security. Political compromise and accommodation became
the hallmarks of the prime minister's domestic survival strategyvalues
that proved relevant to Malaysian stability for the better part of the
Tunku's tenure from 1957 until 1970. In the external sphere, the
young state required protection from internal subversion and external
threat, so it concluded a bilateral security treaty with its former
colonial master. The Anglo-Malaysian Defense Agreement (AMDA)
proved critical to Malaysia's survival during the short period of
confrontation with Indonesia (1963-66).
In terms of resisting the international communist threat in the 1950s,
Malaysia was a clear beneficiary of the U.S.-sponsored network of
global military alliances aimed against the Soviet Union and
Communist China. Essentially, Malaysia's security needs were well
provided for within the broad framework of Anglo-American defense
cooperation in the first two decades of the Cold War and, after the
Vietnam War, through the Five Power Defence Arrangements
(FPDA) formed in 1971 to replace AMDA and comprising Malaysia,
Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and Britain.
Because regional security was defined mainly in ideological terms, the
requirements of national survival made it imperative that Malaysia fit
into externally devised security structures in the early years following
independence. Given the dictates of Cold War politics, neutralism as a
platform of foreign policy was not an option. Malaysia's foreign
policy based on anticommunism was realistic to the extent that it
maximized the benefits and opportunities while minimizing the costs
and risks of national survival. Within this framework of possibilities,
Malaysia pursued two foreign policy strategies at the regional level:
one was conflict resolution through appeals to common ethnocultural
and historical characteristics; the other was regional cooperation based
on common economic and sociocultural foundations. Malaysia's
attempt at

 Page 532
conflict resolution via regional nonmilitary mechanisms would have
achieved greater success had it not been for the sharply divergent
ideological perspective held by Indonesia's President Sukarno
regarding the formation of Malaysia. Sukarno's weltanschauung was
determined by the ideological struggle between the New Emerging
Forces, or NEFOS, and the Old Established Forces, or OLDEFOS
(Nathan 1983: 28-47). In opposing the idea of a larger federation
incorporating Malaya, Singapore, Sabah (North Borneo), Sarawak,
and Brunei, Sukarno claimed leadership of NEFOS while condemning
Malaysian Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman as a collaborator
with the old colonial order (OLDEFOS) in Southeast Asia. Thus,
when in June 1963 the Philippines president, Diasdado Macapagal,
proposed the formation of MAPHILINDOa loose ethnocultural
association based on Malay fraternity comprising the three states of
Malaya, Indonesia, and the Philippinesthe political foundation for
such a relationship soon collapsed in the wake of conflicting
ideological perspectives and territorial claims originating respectively
in Jakarta and Manila. The failure of conflict resolution along pacifist
lines culminated in Indonesia's three-year confrontation with Malaysia
and the still unresolved Philippine claim to Sabah. The Tunku's
successors, in line with the altered strategic scenario following the
American exit from Indochina and the dictates of Malaysian national
survival, pursued a policy of internal anticommunism and
international nonalignment.
Commitment to ASEAN Regionalism
Malaysia's approach to regionalism is a response to the character of its
own domestic national structure and that of the regional power
structure. State-directed nationalism and state-directed growth,
coupled with the growing necessity of pooling resources in the drive
for modernization, have produced the related phenomenon of
regionalism, which has evolved in the form of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), inaugurated in 1967.
ASEAN regionalism is also reflected in the increased bilateralism that
is a necessary by-product of the nation-building process in Southeast
Asia. In Malaysia and Singapore the nation-building process is
particularly instructive with respect to the role of ethnicity in mutual
perceptions and the need to sensitize the foreign policy process to the
realities of ethnicity: Chinese-dominated Singapore interacts with
Malay-dominated Malaysia, and neither questions the basis of ethnic
supremacy that governs both societies. Ethnicity is clearly an unstated
factor in the national security perceptions that influence interstate
relations within the framework of ASEAN regionalism. Hence the

 Page 533
nation-building process in developing societies such as Malaysia and
Singapore links national survival to regional stability and prosperity.
Regional stability reinforces regime security in every member state.
Regional cooperation therefore achieves the simultaneous goals of
promoting a regime's survival and satisfying the drive for
modernization and development as integral components of
postindependence nationalism. In this context, Prime Minister
Mahathir asserts:
So far as Malaysia is concerned, ASEAN remains in the forefront of our
foreign policy priorities. The rationale behind this Government's thinking
is the vital role of ASEAN as a stabilizing influence and as a catalyst in
developing the economic resilience of the region.
ASEAN has become an important platform for the development of closer
relations with advanced countries as well as with international
organizations. ASEAN, therefore, has an important role to play in national,
regional and international affairs.

13

In Malaysia's external security conceptions, a general ordering of

foreign policy priorities reflects the relative weight given to each
component. ASEAN ranks as the first priority in view of its influential
role and direct impact on national and regional security. The Islamic
countries are ranked second for their obvious role in forging an
Islamic identity of which Malay/Muslim-led Malaysia desires to be an
integral part. The Nonaligned Movement ranks third for its potential
power in restructuring international relations in the future. The
Commonwealth is ranked fourth, and all other countries not included
in the first four categories occupy the fifth rank (Khoo 1995: 74-75).
Through regionalism, central decision makers in Malaysia, like their
other ASEAN partners, hope to reduce if not eliminate threats to
national sovereignty. They believe that threats to regime survival
"emanate largely from within their regions, if not from within these
states themselves," stemming from geographic proximity, weak state
structures, and "narrowly based regimes lacking unconditional
legitimacy" (Ayoob 1989: 70-71). New challenges to nation-state
legitimacy created by modernization, growth, and developmentas
manifested by transnational economic phenomena such as the growth
trianglesprovide additional impetus for the reassertion of that
legitimacy through state attempts to control the pace and scope of
economic regionalism in Southeast Asia.
ASEAN strategies of regional survival reflect formal and informal
efforts at forging national and regional security. The formal efforts
include periodic ASEAN summit meetings, annual ASEAN
ministerial meetings, and numerous bilateral and multilateral meetings
and agreements on a wide spectrum of political, military, economic,
technical, and diplomatic matters. A key document outlining the
ASEAN approach to

 Page 534
regional security is the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast
Asia (TAC) signed at the first Bali Summit in Indonesia in February
1976. TAC represents ASEAN's strategy of conflict management
whereby all member states agree to refrain from the use of force and
resort to consultation to settle their disputes.
Informal regionalism, by contrast, incorporates personal diplomacy,
academic meetings, and joint ventures between governments and the
private sector in member states with respect to the development of
growth triangles such as Singapore-Johor-Riau (SIJORI), the East
ASEAN Growth Area (EAGA) covering the southern Philippines,
Brunei, and the East Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak, and the
Northern Growth Triangle involving Indonesia, Malaysia, and
Thailand. The basic convergence of interests inherent in economic
subregionalism may have several positive implications for regime
security and officially sponsored regional cooperation (Thambipillai
1991: 313). However, because the state is still the primary actor
managing as well as spurring economic growth in Southeast Asia,
national governments tend to be apprehensive of subregional
(microregional) activities that might conflict with broader
(macroregional) efforts. For instance, ASEAN-wide projects such as
the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), to be established by 2003, must
not be seen to be failing while subregional activities are succeeding.
Such a development would invariably imply that the state is losing
control of its sovereignty to transnational forces beyond its
controlwith all the attendant consequences for national security. Thus
while microregional activities are a reflection of the growing
economic dynamism of Southeast Asia and the Asia-Pacific region,
they also tend to increase the pressure on governments to perform, to
be accountable, and to deliver the goods to their constituencies
(Nathan 1994).
In the final analysis, the search for greater autonomy through
regionalismand therefore increased collective strengthby Third World
states like Malaysia could well be governed by the desire of ruling
elites to change the status of their countries from being mere "objects"
of international relations to becoming "subjects" as well (Ayoob 1985:
2945). In this regard, ASEAN's record is impressive in terms of
gaining widespread recognition as a regional force in international
relations. Malaysia's commitment to regionalism within the ASEAN
framework is aimed at strengthening national and regional cohesion,
which in turn enhances a sense of national and regional security.
Defense Capability for National and Regional Security
As national security conceptions are redefined to accommodate
changing threat scenarios resulting from the demise of the internal

 Page 535
communist threat and the collapse of international communism, the
role of the Malaysian Armed Forces is being reconfigured. It is being
transformed from a counterinsurgency force into a conventional force.
Force modernization and the expansion of defense capability are
designed primarily to augment national security in the era after the
Cold War. Nevertheless, Malaysia's commitment to the notion of
comprehensive security places emphasis on striking a balance
between strengthening military capability and strengthening the
socioeconomic and political basis of national security. Malaysia's
post-Cold War national security strategy therefore comprises the
following eight elements: (1) comprehensive security through
domestic social cohesion and a stable regional environment; (2)
diplomacy as a first line of defense; (3) commitment to the United
Nations and its instruments for promoting peace, security, and
development; (4) encouragement of regional security dialogues with
the aim of promoting cooperative security; (5) promotion of
confidence-building measures especially in the area of crisis
management; (6) emphasis on military diplomacy through contacts,
exchanges, training, and joint exercises; (7) promotion of bilateral and
multilateral cooperation such as the FPDA; and (8) modernization of
the Malaysian Armed Forces to defend national sovereignty and
enhance national security (Razak 1995: 32-40).
The FPDA, which was formed in 1971 to replace the Anglo-
Malaysian Defense Agreement (AMDA, 1957-1971) is viewed by
Malaysia as augmenting national and regional security, and serves as
a defense mechanism in the event of any external aggression, even
though the Cold War and the communist threat have terminated. More
significantly, the framework of training, weaponry, and joint exercises
provided by the FPDA has the beneficial effect of enhancing the
technological sophistication of the Malaysian Armed Forces by
promoting greater interoperability and more advanced
communications, command, and control systems.
communications, command, and control systems.

14 Undoubtedly, Malaysia and Singapore are comfortable with a

continued British military presence via the FPDA as a deterrent to the
threat of regional hegemony posed by rising Asian powers such as
China in the post-Cold War era. Additionally, the continuation of the
FPDA can produce a positive impact on the final resolution of the
Spratly Islands disputes through diplomacy rather than the threat or
use of force.

The adoption of a holistic approach to national defense and regional

security, especially with the demise of bipolarity in international
relations, has inevitably meant a reduction in defense expenditure
relative to other sectors of the national economy. The allocation of an
average of only 2% to 3% of total GNP for defense (Razak 1995: 38)
is strongly indicative of Malaysia's approach to national security:
military power is

 Page 536
but one dimension of the total equation, while other components such
as political, social, and economic security are assigned greater
significance in terms of contributing to peace, stability, harmony, and
prosperity. For Malaysia, the integration of national defense capability
with regional defense through existing mechanisms of bilateral and
multilateral security cooperation is viewed as the best guarantee of
regional security. The concept of regional defense precludes the
notion of securing the regional strategic environment through
traditional methods of alliance formation, which can be
counterproductive, especially in a depolarized global environment.
Nonalignment, Neutrality, and Regional Security
Systemic changes in international relations affect a nation's security
behavior in a variety of ways. Above all, dramatic changes in global
strategic trends alter national perceptions and capabilities vis-à-vis the
world order inasmuch as they have an impact on domestic policies
and priorities. Malaysia reached such a juncture in the late 1960s,
particularly after the announcement of the Nixon Doctrine in July
1969. A change of leadership in Washington was accompanied by a
similar development in Kuala Lumpur. The Tunku gave way to his
deputy, Tun Abdul Razak, who served as Malaysia's second prime
minister from September 1970 until his death in January 1976. Indeed,
it was Tun Razak who presided over fundamental policy formulations
affecting internal and external security. Tun Razak was even more
conscious than his predecessor of the need for strategic management
of national and regional security in the wake of the American military
withdrawal from Vietnam.
Malaysia proposed the creation of a neutralized Southeast Asia with a
view to filling the regional power vacuum with greater indigenous
regional content. Kuala Lumpur's initiative giving regional expression
to the post-Vietnam balance of power came in the form of the Zone of
Peace, Freedom, and Neutrality (ZOPFAN) Declaration, which was
endorsed in principle by the ASEAN foreign ministers at their annual
meeting in Kuala Lumpur on November 27, 1971. Malaysia's regional
strategic perspective, underscored by the ZOPFAN idea, was being
realigned to the new power configurations emerging at the regional
and global levels. In post-Vietnam Southeast Asia, Malaysia now had
to reckon with a new strategic scenario characterized by
· The birth of a communist or socialist Indochina
· The growing power and influence of the People's Republic of
China following the end of the U.S. containment of China and the
accompanying Sino-American détente

 Page 537
· The expanding economic role of Japan as major investor, trader,
and creditor in Southeast Asia
· Reduced prospects for the involvement of American military
power to stave off the collapse of pro-American or anticommunist
regimes
· The growing political maturity, economic strength, and national
and regional resilience of the ASEAN states, making them less
dependent on external powers for managing regional security and
stability
· The emergence by the late 1960s of a semblance of political and
economic multipolarity (United States, USSR/Russia, Japan, China,
EEC) coupled with rising polycentrism within the communist world
as exemplified by the Sino-Soviet conflict thus allowing regional
actors to assert more control over their own regional environment.
Tun Razak regarded ZOPFAN as a noncontroversial concept that
could be implemented gradually to fill the power vacuum created by
the U.S. disengagement from the region. In proposing ZOPFAN while
continuing to adhere to Malaysia's basic pro-Western strategic
orientation, Tun Razak was in effect experimenting with a new
technique of regional strategic managementthat is, forging new
directions for Malaysian foreign policy. The basic pro-Western stance
of the ASEAN states, however, limited the full impact of the concept
of zonal neutrality. As Charles Morrison and Astri Suhrke have
observed: "Although Malaysia became the foremost advocate of
regional neutrality after 1970, it was unwilling in the interim before
neutrality could be achieved to give up completely its own defense
commitments from Britain, Australia, and New Zealand" (Morrison
and Suhrke 1978: 142). The Vietnamese reacted by proposing their
own version of a neutralized Southeast Asia: the Zone of Genuine
Independence, Peace, and Neutrality (ZOGIPAN). Moreover,
ZOPFAN was premised on, and therefore flawed by, the requirement
of great-power guarantees from the United States, Russia, and China.
The track record of big-power interests in Southeast Asiaa record of
conflict and collisiontends to nullify rather than reinforce any external
guarantees for the neutralization of Southeast Asia. Nevertheless, as
expressions of indigenous regional interests, ASEAN and ZOPFAN
boosted regional confidence in forging more equitable partnerships
with external powers in order to strengthen regional stability and
promote economic development.

 Page 538
The Cambodian Conflict: Regional Containment
Regional conflict brings opportunities as well as constraints with
respect to the pursuit of national security. During the ten-year period
of Vietnam's military occupation of Cambodia (1979-89), the concept
of ZOPFAN proved to be unworkable. The region was once again
sucked into the politics of the revived Cold War, forcing regional
states to exercise their survival options only within the framework of
superpower relations.
In the scenario following the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in
December 1978 (preceded by the forging of close security ties
between Hanoi and Moscow only a month earlier), Malaysian security
objectives and survival strategies may be summarized as follows:
contain Soviet-Vietnamese expansion in Southeast Asia because it
directly threatens the viability and coherence of ASEAN regionalism;
use the Soviet-Vietnamese threat to engage American involvement to
promote Malaysian/ASEAN interests; contain the problem of
Indochinese refugees before they undermine the social and political
stability of affected states; intervene in the Cambodian conflict with a
view to managing it in favor of Malaysian national interests; and
capitalize on the Sino-Soviet and Sino-Vietnamese rivalries with a
view to neutralizing the influence of all three communist powers in
Southeast Asia.
Malaysia's fears concerning excessive outside intervention in regional
affairs found expression in the Kuantan Principle of March 1980. The
Kuantan Principle stressed the need for superpower restraint in the
Cambodian conflict in light of the earlier experience of the Vietnam
War (1954-75) when large-scale intervention polarized regional
politics for more than two decades. Nevertheless, Malaysia in concert
with ASEAN, Japan, the United States, China, and the European
Community confronted the Soviet-Vietnamese alliance, thereby
exerting strong political, economic, military, and diplomatic pressure
to compel Hanoi's withdrawal from the war-ravaged Khmer nation.
Malaysia intervened directly in the Cambodian conflict by sponsoring
the formation of the anti-Vietnamese Coalition Government of
Democratic Kampuchea (CGDK) in Kuala Lumpur on June 22, 1982.
By helping to establish the CGDK, Malaysia aspired to provide a
noncommunist alternative government as an option to be considered
by the Cambodian people.
Malaysia's stand on Cambodia evidenced respect for Khmer territorial
integrity and political sovereignty and firm commitment to the
principle of resolving international disputes by peaceful means. In any
event, the CGDK formula as Malaysia's answer to regional conflict
was a by-product of Cold War politics. It was an effective survival
strategy to

 Page 539
the extent that it was premised on superpower competition and
external involvement. With the demise of the Cold War, however,
national security strategies would have to be revised to give new
direction and dynamic expression to the nation's pursuit of its vital
interests.
The South China Sea Claims and Regional Security
The demise of the Cold War in Southeast Asia has raised the strategic
profile of overlapping territorial claims in the South China Sea, posing
security concerns for regional claimants vis-à-vis China. The
resource-rich Spratly Islands have become an important issue for
regional security because of the conflicting claims to sovereignty.
Indeed, according to an ASEAN-ISIS report, "the Spratlys disputes
represents the single most important potential threat to regional
stability."

15 Malaysia staked its claim to Terumbu Layang-Layang (Amboyna

Cay and Swallow Reef) in 1979 on the basis that the islet fell within
its proclaimed 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone. Besides
the economic stakes involved in the South China Sea claim, regional
states like Malaysia are clearly wary of China's growing power
projection capabilities since the Dengist Reformation of the late
1970s. The decision to build a major naval base in Sandakan on the
northern coast of Sabah to "cope with increased foreign naval
activities in the region"16 was clearly based on national security
considerations, including the ability to participate in the resolution of
these territorial claims and to preclude China from dominating the
outcome. In this regard, Malaysian defense capabilities have been
enhanced by the FPDA, which in June 1983 conducted a naval
exercise (coded Starfish) in the South China Sea, following which
Malaysian marines established a permanent military presence on
Terumbu Layang-Layang. In view of China's historic claim to
sovereignty over the Spratlys (Ji Guoshing 1992: 2), combined with
its enhanced military capability to enforce that claim, Malaysia has
supported an ASEAN approach to dispute management based on
negotiations. The 1992 ASEAN Declaration on the South China Sea,
issued in Manila, urged all six claimants to renounce the use of force,
to exercise restraint, and to create a positive climate for the final
resolution of the overlapping claims.

Malaysia has also altered its perception of China. Although looked

upon with caution, Beijing is not depicted as an enemy but as a friend
and partner in the economic development and prosperity of the Asia-
Pacific region. This revised approach to national security is strongly
influenced by political pragmatism (recognition of China as a major
power) and economic necessity (the prospect of economic cooperation
with the world's largest single market of nearly 1.3 billion people).

 Page 540
Additionally, Malaysia's comprehensive security approach
deemphasizes the need to identify enemies in a changing balance-of-
power situation, both regionally and globally. Comprehensive security
at the domestic level must be complemented by cooperative security
at the regional level, pursued on the basis of mutual and equal
security, respect for sovereignty, commitment to peace, restraint in the
use of force, and rejection of hegemonism.

17

Malaysia's commitment to ASEAN has substantially reduced

intraregional threats to the country's national securitynotwithstanding
the Philippine claim to Sabah, which the two countries have agreed to
put aside in favor of forging closer bilateral economic and defense
cooperation.18 The challenge for Malaysia, therefore, is to prove its
capacity to be more responsible, equitable, and innovative in
formulating and executing national objectives with a view to giving
the country the competitive edge in international transactions.
International Foundations
In the realm of international security, Vision 2020 envisages the onset
of certain strategic trends that will define the policy-making
environment for Malaysia. These trends constitute the external
foundation for Malaysia's security conceptions and foreign policy
agenda: the demise of international communism; the strategic role of
the United States after the Cold War; the rise of political multipolarity
and economic regionalism; prospects for South-South cooperation;
and future patterns of international trade.
The Collapse of International Communism
The rapid decline of communist ideology culminating in the collapse
first of the Soviet empire (1989) and then the Soviet Union itself
(1991) is a major development with important policy implications.
The domestic impact of the collapse of world communism was
revealed in the decision by the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) to
abort its armed insurgency against the Malaysian government in
December 1989. Communism as a viable ideological and social
system has been discredited in Southeast Asia by Vietnamese
imperialism and Khmer atrocities in Indochina. The end of the CPM's
armed struggle presents both an opportunity and a challenge: the
prospect of positive development to achieve growth targets rather than
the negative action of containing the threat of internal subversion
(Nathan 1990: 210-20). The regional threat scenario has become more
manageable now that China no longer poses an ideological threat, but
China does present a political and economic

 Page 541
threat to indigenous Southeast Asian societies with sizable ethnic
Chinese minorities, such as Malaysia. Moreover, China's recent
assertiveness over the South China Sea, especially its promulgation of
a domestic law classifying most of the South China Sea as territorial
waters, is worrisome (Asia Yearbook 1995: 24).

19 Nevertheless, the strategic success of Vision 2020 depends on the

existence of a regional security environment that deemphasizes the
Chinese threat while simultaneously asserting the need to contain, if
not moderate, Chinese foreign policy.

Strategic Unipolarity
With the disintegration of the Soviet Union and a weak Russia, the
United States, by all calculations of national power, is unrivaled by
any other power center in the worlda situation that is likely to
continue into the twenty-first century. In Southeast Asia the closure of
the Clark air base and the Subic Bay naval base has been effected in
the context of a thinner but geographically wider military presence of
American power in terms of aircraft and warships. Malaysia too has
offered repair and replenishment facilities at Lumut to encourage the
continued deployment of U.S. strategic and conventional power in the
region.20 The U.S. strategic presence has thus far guaranteed the
security of sea-lanes of communication while reducing the prospect of
intraregional conflict over issues such as the contending claims to the
Spratly Islands.21 Malaysia expects the prevailing trend of U.S.
strategic dominance in the Asia-Pacific region to continue beyond the
twentieth century. Nevertheless Malaysia, like several other Asian
states including China, India, and Indonesia, is uneasy over the U.S.
capacity to extract unilateral advantagesuch as by linking trade to
democracy, human rights, and environmental issues, thus throttling
certain legitimate national and regional aspirations.22 Moreover,
American security assurances for the Asia-Pacific region after the
Cold War have done little to alleviate Malaysian and other Asian
concerns regarding the ''essential uncertainty and unpredictability of
the regional security environment" (Ball and Kerr 1996: 40).
It is precisely those concerns that underlay the initiation of the
ASEAN Regional Forum, which held its first meeting in Bangkok in
July 1994. Malaysia, like its ASEAN partners, would prefer to decide
the security agenda through dialogue with external powers. Such an
approach provides the best insurance against the negative intervention
of big powers in regional affairs; it also ensures their constructive
engagement in support of regional stability, security, development,
and prosperity. In the absence of a multilateral security structure, the
ASEAN Regional Forum is Malaysia's best multilateral guarantee of
national,

 Page 542
regional, and international security following the dramatic strategic
transformations after the Cold War.
Economic Regionalism and the East Asian Economic Caucus
Initiative
The primacy of economics in the post-Cold War world warrants the
placement of a higher premium on economic performance and less
emphasis on military-oriented security. And the ability to sustain,
expand, and modernize a nation's military capability is dependent on
economic growth. The link between economics and military power is
nowhere more evident than in Russia, whose military capability has
declined significantly due to the economic morass confronting it.
Internal chaos and secessionist rebellions have further undermined
national authority to the point where Russian power is no longer taken
seriously in Asia, particularly in Southeast Asia. In contrast, Southeast
Asia's buoyant economies have been able to augment military power.
The creation of regional economic associations, as well as greater
economic integration, is merely a reflection of the congruence of
national interests. Malaysia's proposal to set up an East Asian
Economic Grouping (EAEG), first announced by Mahathir in
December 1990, was a response to the unsatisfactory progress of the
now concluded Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations
(Nathan 1995: 231). Moreover, Malaysia harbors genuine fears over
"the emergence of an economic cold war, a vastly more complicated
global struggle for economic influence where the powerful seek to
dominate, even exploit, the weak. The emergence of powerful trading
blocs like the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Area, and the European
Community (EC), with a propensity for protectionism is particularly
worrying for small countries like Malaysia."

23
The concept of EAEG (later renamed EAEC, East Asian Economic
Caucus) aims to build up negotiating strength vis-à-vis other
economic groupings. In an important sense, EAEC can be regarded as
the externalization of Malaysia's security conception via Vision 2020.
Mahathir sees a natural geographical, cultural, ethnic, and historical
affinity with other East Asian partnersthe emergence, that is, of an
East Asian consciousnessthat lends viability to EAEC-style economic
regionalism. Further, Mahathir's strategy of downplaying the Chinese
threat to Southeast Asia has earned the anticipated dividend: China's
"explicit and unwavering support" for the EAEC.24 The conspicuous
removal of China as a threat in Mahathir's foreign policy is also
designed to strengthen local Sino-Malay business cooperation to
capitalize on the "economic opening of China" and thereby boost
Malaysia's economic performance.

 Page 543
Nevertheless, the EAEC concept has run into serious opposition from
the United States. Moreover, Japana key playerhas been ambivalent.
Although Mahathir's idea may be sound, it must contend with
competing ideas of regional and world order such as Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation (APEC), inaugurated in Canberra in
November 1989, which enjoys full participation by the United States
and all major Asia-Pacific actors including ASEAN. The success of
the Fourth APEC Summit in Manila (November 1996) means that
EAEC will remain a secondary forum in the eyes of East Asian
members for whom APEC has become the established process and
instrument of economic regionalism.

25

The United Nations, South-South Cooperation, and Islamic Solidarity

Malaysia accords high priority to the role of the United Nationsthe
only world forum where small and large countries alike can speak
with an equal voice. Malaysia's confidence in the United Nations for
the management of international security is evidenced by an early
commitment to send troops to support U.N. peacekeeping operations
in the Congo in the early 1960s. That effort was followed by
participation in peacekeeping operations along the Iran-Iraq border, in
Namibia, Somalia, and Cambodia, and more recently in Bosnia.
During Mahathir's tenure since 1981, Malaysia has assumed several
leadership roles in line with its positive contribution to U.N. activities
for peace, security, and development: leadership of G-77, president of
the 25th UNESCO General Conference, alternating U.N. Security
Council member from 1988 to 1990, chairman of the International
Conference on Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, and chairman of
the International Conference on Refugees. In 1996, Malaysia's
representative, Datuk Razali Ismail, was elected president of the U.N.
General Assembly. Malaysia's attitude toward the United Nations
reveals a security conception that is based on the collective will of the
international community. With the end of the Cold War, the role of
the United Nations in security affairs has grown enormously, not only
in scope but also in terms of the type and complexity of activity
(Roberts 1993: 230). The Malaysian conception of international
security corresponds closely to the expanded and multidimensional
role of the United Nations in promoting a peaceful, just, and equitable
world order.
In other spheres of international leadership, Malaysia has been in the
forefront in forging South-South cooperation based on the conviction
that development is the best source of security for nations of the
South. Organizing high-level international meetings in Malaysia is but
one

 Page 544
strategy to enlist the cooperation of the North and South to promote
socioeconomic development. Mahathir was instrumental in proposing
three specific projects to augment South-South cooperation: the
Bilateral Payments Arrangements (BPA) at the first G-15 summit, the
multilateral Developing Countries Payments Arrangements (DCPA),
and the South Investment, Trade, and Technology Data Exchange
Center (SITTDEC) at the second G-15 summit in Caracas, Venezuela
(November 27-29, 1991)all of which are making reasonable progress.
In 1993 Malaysia hosted the first expert group meeting on Exchange
of Information on National Economic Policies (EINEP), relating to
such issues as sustainable development, fiscal and monetary policies,
trade and investment, and privatization.

26 Since the 1980s Malaysia has continued "to give priority to the
enhancement of political, economic, trade, technological, and business
investment cooperation among the countries of the South."27 All these
activities underscore Malaysia's security conceptions of the Third
World in particular and world politics in general while charting new
directions for Malaysian foreign policy and indeed for the developing
world.

Given that most of the Muslim world was subjected to Western

colonial domination, South-South cooperation and Islamic solidarity
are complementary strategies for promoting national security and
advancement. In this regard, the establishment of the "Development
Eight" in Istanbul, Turkey, represents yet another Malaysian strategy
to publicize the compatibility of Islam with modernization and
development, thereby promoting Malaysian conceptions of national
security and economic progress.28 In much the same way as Third
World countries have developed common interests vis-à-vis the West
as part of the decolonization process, the Muslim world developed
strong feelings of Islamic solidarity vis-à-vis their ex-colonial
masters. For the Muslim world, "the idea of Islamic solidarity gave
them a framework for increased cooperation among themselves in
social, political, and economic fields" (Noor Ahmad Baba 1993: 42).
Malaysia has taken the initiative in building Muslim solidarity since
the early 1950s. Its efforts culminated in the Rabat Summit
Conference (September 22-25, 1969), which formalized the
establishment of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).
Although the achievements of the OIC as a forum for international
Muslim solidarity might be negligible in terms of restructuring the
world order in favor of Muslim interests, its existence as a symbol of
Muslim identity and security and its potential role as a political and
economic force cannot be ignored.
For a Malay/Muslim-dominant multiethnic and multireligious
Malaysia, the search for identity and security in the Muslim world
repre-

 Page 545
sents the external dimension of the internal quest for ethnoreligious
identity in a plural setting. Since Mahathir's accession to premiership,
he has attempted to broaden Malaysia's Islamic credentials by creating
the Islamic Bank and the International Islamic University in 1983,
accelerating the government's mosque-building program, and
strengthening ties with other Islamic countriesefforts designed to
strengthen Malay ethnoreligious identity while "reinforcing UMNO's
Islamic legitimacy among the Malays without kindling a degree of
unease in the other ethnic communities" (Camroux 1994: 20).
International Trade and International Security
Economic foreign policy is strongly emphasized by the Mahathir
administration. As the industrialization process accelerates and
Malaysia becomes more integrated into the world economy through
expansion of its competitive basis, international trade is becoming a
vital strategy of national security and survival. Vision 2020 envisages
the necessity for Malaysia to continue expanding its export base, both
geographically and in terms of product diversification, in order to
strengthen its competitive capacity in overseas markets (Zulliger
1993: 391). The country's rapidly expanding capacity for international
trade is reflected in the numerous trade agreements signed in
conjunction with the Malaysian premier's visits to Africa, South
America, the South Pacific, the former Soviet republics in Central
Asia, and the Caribbeanin addition to Malaysia's traditional trade
partnerships with the ASEAN countries plus Japan, the United States,
the European Community, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and, of
late, South Korea. Vision 2020 envisages the full development of
Malaysia's export potential and the penetration of new markets for
Malaysian merchandise, capital, and investments. The building of new
economic links with the South is one of Malaysia's foreign policy
strategies for reducing overreliance on Western markets. In recent
years, the prime minister's annual visits to Central Asia, South Asia,
Northeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America indicate the increased
Northeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America indicate the increased
emphasis being given to the economic dimensions of international
security. This perspective is based on official forecasts of a 4 percent
expansion of the world economy in 1996 "supported principally by
the strong growth of the developing countries, in particular the
countries of East Asia."

29

Challenges and Prospects

Malaysia's security goals, as expressed in its domestic and foreign
policies, can be stated as follows: protection of national sovereignty
with emphasis on political integrity and territorial unity; economic
develop-

 Page 546
ment and social justice in the context of a multiracial society;
preservation of constitutional monarchy, Islam, and the special rights
of the Malays; a firm commitment to ASEAN and promotion of other
forms of economic regionalism that advance national interests;
promotion of regional stability and security via ZOPFAN; and a
commitment to promote South-South cooperation aimed at enhancing
the economic welfare of the less developed world and supporting
human rights and social justice worldwide.
Such conceptions of national security invariably call for adroit
diplomacy to bridge the gap between national aspirations and
international realitiesin other words, the gap between desirability and
possibility. In this context, the Malaysian leadership has evidenced a
high degree of pragmatism in managing relations at all three levels:
bilateral, regional, and global. Strategic management of domestic and
foreign security policies has informed the present success enjoyed by
Malaysians in terms of political stability, economic growth, social
peace, and national prosperity. Malaysia's ability to manage structural
constraints (such as multiracialism and a limited resource base) and
convert them into positive forces for development and prosperity has,
in the main, contributed to an expanded regional capacity to sustain
and promote microlevel and macrolevel regionalism. The current
scenario would undoubtedly be different without a strategic vision and
the ability to manage difficulties while promoting possibilities.
Indeed, such a strategic vision was already in place as early as 1967
when ASEAN was formed. Succeeding years merely witnessed the
consolidation of that vision in the form of national and regional
resilience. Thus ASEAN has enabled Malaysia and its ASEAN
partners to manage bilateral relations on the basis of tolerance and
mutual respect. This approach to national security at the regional level
has in turn strengthened the foundations of regional cooperation and
prosperity. It lends credence, as well, to the success of nascent
regional economic and security agendas for the post-Cold War era
such as EAEC and ARF.
The critical link between regionalism and nation-building lies in the
fact that the former cannot succeed without the latter. Internal stability
in each of the regional partners determines their individual as well as
collective capacity to cooperate and advance at the regional level. In
this regard, Mahathir's remarks are noteworthy: there is a strong
correlation between rapid economic growth and strong, stable
governments in East Asia, for together they provide the stability and
consistency so essential to long-term investment and economic
progress.

30 The ASEAN experience has confirmed this fundamental political

condition of healthy regionalism. Moreover, a strong ASEAN can be
helpful to individual

 Page 547
member states in times of internal difficulties: the Third ASEAN
Summit was held in Manila in December 1987 specifically to
demonstrate ASEAN's support of the beleaguered Aquino
administration following the collapse of the Marcos regime.
Nation-building is an ongoing process for many developing countries
that were colonies of the European powers. The management of
interethnic relations has been one of the most challenging tasks for
multiracial states such as Malaysia after independence. Finding the
right formula requires political maturity, economic wisdom, and even
the occasional use of repression to promote the government's
legitimacy and the regime's security. At a recent Vision 2020
conference, Mahathir justified governmental policies curbing political
liberties as serving the national interest: "If the Government seems to
be unduly strict and unwilling to accede to various demands made by
various quarters, it is because we want to serve the best interest of the
people and the nation."

31 Indeed, national security becomes a convenient device for regime

legitimation and continuation of ethnic-based discrimination as a
"temporary evil" in order to achieve the presumably greater good of
national unity and the professed vision of a united Malaysian nation.

Meanwhile, the concept and practice of national security might well

perpetuate Malaysia's status as a state-nation, strengthened as it is by a
record of good governance, political stability, and economic
prosperity, without its having to confront the real challenges posed by
a genuinely constructed nation-state. Indeed, as long as the Malaysian
state-nation can provide political stability, economic growth, domestic
peace, social harmony, and sustainable developmentthe basic pillars
of the comprehensive approach to national securitythe transition to a
full-fledged nation-state will not be viewed by decision makers as a
major problematic of the Malaysian political economy.
In Southeast Asia, with the possible exception of Thailand, which was
never colonized, the state came before the nation. The task of the
independent state, therefore, was to create a nationthat is, to
commence the nation-building process while at the same time
maintaining racial harmony, social security, political stability, and
economic development, all vital elements of national security. The
Malaysian record of dealing with the multifold challenges of
postindependence nationalism and regionalism is a record of strong
state intervention and management of the political and economic
dimensions of national security. The historic Gas and Water Accord
(June 1988) and the Intergovernmental Agreement on the Second
Crossing (March 1994) between Malaysia and Singapore represent not
only major milestones in bilateralism but also major successes in
ASEAN-style regionalism characterized by the spirit

 Page 548
of tolerance and compromise.

32 This political ability to manage the nation-building process has

produced the spillover effects of economic development and
prosperity, both nationally and regionally. The resulting impact on the
nation and the region tends to reinforce the hypothesis that
postindependence national elites in Malaysia and ASEAN are
managing the nation-building process through modernization, regime
legitimation, resource mobilization, allegiance mobilization, and
regionalism in Southeast Asia. The convergence of national and
regional interests via ASEAN is but another manifestation of the same
activity.

In sum, then, Malaysia's conception of security is a corporate

aggregate of its own historical experience, its multiethnicity, its
ethnonational vision, and its desire to seek recognition for its changed
status from "object" to "subject" of international relations. The
principal architects of the nation's survival strategies have been the
prime ministers. Indeed, the role of Mahathir Mohamad in injecting a
personal vision into national security formulation has been singularly
instrumental to Malaysia's present high profile in world forums.
Mahathir's conception of Malaysian security emphasizes the notion
that leaders of multiethnic societies must continuously reinvent the
nation to strengthen national security and promote regional stability.
Malaysia's national security managers now have to deal with an
unexpected turn of events wrought by the financial crisis that has
engulfed Southeast Asia beginning in July 1997 with the dramatic
depreciation in the value of the Thai baht. In Malaysia, the financial
crisis has compelled the political leadership to slow GNP growth from
7 percent to 4 percent in 1998 and to cancel several prestigious
megaprojects. More than two million jobs are expected to be lost in
1998, and recovery is expected to take two to five years. This
unanticipated economic crisis could have serious social and political
consequences and could undermine the effort of the incumbent
political leadership to forge a national community that transcends
ethnic divides. Further, the credibility and survivability of Malaysia's
current political leadership hinges strongly on the success of the
economic strategies formulated to restore national and international
confidence in the Malaysian economy. The financial crisis and its
possible consequences underscore the strong nexus between economic
and political dimensions of security in multiethnic Malaysia.

 Page 549

17
The Philippines
State Versus Society?
Noel M. Morada and Christopher Collier
To meet the threats to the security of the state, the national government set as
its paramount goal the immediate immobilization and dismantling of the
unconstitutional opposition, which included the advocates and perpetrators of
rebellion, the conspirators, the separatists, and the various lawless elements,
which,
although not politically motivated, undermined the authority of the
government.
PRESIDENT FERDINAND E. MARCOS, 1978
National security, in the traditional view, was synonymous with national
defense, with public safety, with the preservation and reimposition of order.
The
February Revolution has enriched that traditional view to include as the first
order
of priority the preservation of the rights and liberties [of] our people.
National
security [is] not a matter of keeping the people at arms lengthor erecting
higher
walls or denser barbed wires between government and people, but bringing
the
people in.... Security forces do not protect operations or establishment from
the
people, but for and in behalf of the people. And better still, with the people.
PRESIDENT CORAZON C. AQUINO, 1986
A country's need for security never changes.... What changes are the ways in
which the State tries to arrange this guarantee. The Ramos Administration
now defines national security in non-military terms. It regards national
security as founded ultimately on our country's economic strength,
its political unity, and its social cohesion.
NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER JOSE T. ALMONTE, 1994

 Page 550
The discourse on national security in the Philippines is rooted in
conflicts over the identity of the nation-state, over regime legitimacy,
and over socioeconomic inequality, which continue to create tensions
between state and society. Unlike more established states (and those
that more clearly reflect the realist model), the Philippine state has not
achieved an effective monopoly of the means of coercion within its
boundaries and is still engaged in a process of nation-building. The
limited coercive and administrative reach of the Philippine state is
manifest in the continued prevalence of private armed forces,
particularly in the countryside, including rebel guerrillas, the armed
retainers of oligarchic politicians, and paramilitary groups. Internal
security has remained the priority down to the 1990s, and it is
precisely because the "enemy" has been within, rather than an external
"other," that conflict has arisen between the security needs of state and
populace. Although the tensions between state and society reached a
climax in the final years of the Marcos regime, they have not been
resolved by the restoration of formal electoral democracy under
Presidents Aquino and Ramos. If the U.S. military presence at Subic
Bay and Clark Field provided an umbrella against external threats
until 1992, it also had the potential of drawing the Philippines into
superpower conflict. Although the immediate danger of global nuclear
confrontation has receded, the American withdrawal has exposed an
unprepared Philippine military to new regional security threats.

This chapter traces the evolution of conceptions of national security

under the administrations of Ferdinand Marcos (1965-86), Corazon
Aquino (1986-92), and Fidel Ramos (1992-98). In shaping our
account around successive presidential regimes we are not
exaggerating the degree of executive agency with respect to wider
social forces but bringing into clear relief the changing
conceptualization of the referents, scope, and approach to Philippine
security. Prominent here are swings between military repression and
political settlement, between centralization and devolution of
authority, and, especially pertinent in the post-Cold War, post-U.S.
bases context, between concern with internal and external security.
Underlying these dialectic themes is the ongoing tension between the
security requirements of the state and those of the people. Our
consideration of the national security policies of these three
administrations leads us to argue that both state and society are most
secure when they become mutually reinforcing through processes of

 Page 551
institutionalized participation. The state becomes strong not when it
privileges its own security over that of the people, but when its
security becomes synonymous with theirs.
State, Oligarchy, and Social Revolution
The conceptualization of national security in the Philippines since the
time of Marcos has evolved from a highly state-centered notion to a
more society-oriented approach. At the heart of the debate over
national security and democracy in the country is the proper role and
extent of state power in promoting and protecting the national interest
as well as the basic rights of individuals in society. Yet the boundaries
of the state as an entity are themselves problematic. Before the arrival
of the Spanish colonists, the most extensive political units in the
archipelago were loose groupings of villages (barangay) and several
Muslim sultanates. Under the Spanish, feudal land grants
(encomienda) established a pattern of decentralized power, and the
state came to be viewed as a source of patronage and an instrument
for plundering society. The intensification of export agriculture in the
nineteenth century gave rise to a landed oligarchy whose position
depended on access to state power, and the interests of state and
oligarchy became intimately intertwined. After independence from the
United States in 1946, ''national" security came essentially to mean
the security of landed interests. This virtual identity was demonstrated
by the state's response to the Huk peasant rebellion of the 1940s and
1950s. Rather than undertaking substantive land reform, as occurred
in Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea, the state combined repression
with token reforms, and peasants were encouraged to resettle from
overcrowded northern islands to the sparsely populated Mindanao
frontier. As indigenous Muslims were displaced by this historic
migration, a new threatthis time to the territorial integrity of the young
republicemerged in the 1970s in the shape of the Moro National
Liberation Front (MNLF).
Although formal electoral democracy was established early on in the
period of American colonial rule (1898-1946), the franchise was
initially restricted and democratic institutions served mainly to ensure
the regular rotation in office of opposing factions among the landed
elite. Formally structured around a loose two-party system, these
factions actually rested upon chains of patron-client ties extending
down into the rural power bases of landed politicians. As has been
ably demonstrated in recent work on Philippine "bossism" (McCoy
1993; Sidel 1995; Lacaba 1995), these patronage ties were reinforced
by local-level political violence, often exercised through powerful
private armies. As the commercializa-

 Page 552
tion of agriculture accelerated with growing integration into global
markets, patronage ties weakened and coercion intensified. Because
local landed elites and provincial officeholders were typically one and
the same, the distinction between private political muscle and the
local armed forces of the state was frequently unclear. A constitution
on the American model proclaimed the supremacy of civilian
authority over the military, as well as the separation of powers among
the three branches of government, but in the rural areas where most
Filipinos lived these abstractions must often have seemed more formal
than real.
In an avowed attempt to break the stranglehold of the landed elite,
much of which had acquired diversified interests in industry by the
1960s, Ferdinand Marcos overthrew the 1935 constitution, declaring
martial law in 1972. Militarization, centralization, and cronyism over
the ensuing thirteen years undermined the security of both state and
society, profoundly influencing the reconceptualizations of national
security that followed the dictator's ouster in 1986. The legacies of
martial law include continuing communist and Muslim insurgencies,
an impoverished economy, a politicized military establishment that
came to threaten the regime itself but is incapable of defending the
national territory, and an enduring mistrust of the "strong" state. But
the experience also gave rise to an invigorated civil society more
capable of checking and balancing the state and of reinforcing it
where it is weakest. Tensions between state and society persist. As the
referent unit and scope of security evolve to embrace society,
however, more comprehensive approaches may follow. Marcos's
predominantly military strategy has been tempered by greater
emphasis on political and diplomatic approaches under Aquino and
Ramos. And changing conceptions of what the Philippine state is to be
secured againstexternal aggression rather than internal
subversionsuggest that military force is increasingly something to be
projected outward, rather than inward against the citizenry.
Attempts to deepen the incumbent's legitimacy and security through
the discursive conflation of state, regime, and government have been
common to all three administrations surveyed here, with varying
degrees of success. In their efforts to minimize the identity between
state and oligarchy and to maximize that between state and society, all
three have portrayed themselves, in differing senses, as both
revolutionary and democratic. Marcos embarked upon a "revolution
from the center" in 1972; Aquino rode a wave of "People Power" to
the presidential palace in 1986; both Marcos and Aquino represented
themselves as embattled democrats struggling to save the state from
left and right alike. The Ramos government represented the full
consolidation of Aquino's democratic restoration, which he defended
against several failed coups,

 Page 553
and embodied the nation's hopes for economic transformation to
"newly industrialized" status.
The persistence of these efforts to appropriate populist appeal reflects
the equally persistent ideological challenge from the Communist Party
of the Philippines (CPP), which has struck deep roots in society. In its
own attempts to reframe the referent units of Philippine politics, the
organized left led by the CPP has stubbornly insisted on the essential
identity of the Marcos, Aquino, and Ramos administrations as U.S.
puppet regimes equally in thrall to the unaltering reality of
"imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat capitalism," the three basic
problems of Philippine society in the communist canon. This
ideological threat gained its greatest force from the fusion of state and
regime under Marcos, whose personal interests took priority as the
referent unit of "national" security, along with crony capitalism. By
identifying Marcos, the man, as the Philippines' basic problem, the
Aquino revolution diffused the left's ideological potency somewhat, as
have socialism's global reversals and the winding down of the "special
relationship'' with the United States. The urgency of combating
internal social revolution has left the state ill equipped to confront
external threats without the support of that relationship, and at the
same time the passing of Cold War bipolarity has unleashed regional
power rivalries that pose more of a danger than ever before.
Security Under Marcos
Ferdinand Marcos justified the declaration of martial law in 1972 by
citing "the threat posed by the growth of rebellion and subversion"
from both left and right, as well as the secessionist movement in the
south.

2 Martial law was the necessary instrument of a beleaguered state that

had the will to resist these rebellions in order to "save the Republic
and form a New Society." Though the immediate threat came from the
CPPreconstituted in 1968-69 alongside a New People's Army (NPA)
to take up the lost peasant struggle of the Huksand from the MNLF,
those groups could not be decisively defeated without uprooting the
oligarchic "old society" that nourished them. The old society was
ruled by "social and political elites manipulating a precarious
democracy of patronage, privilege, and personal aggrandizement." In
Marcos's view, "the old society had to go; it was no longer workable
and could not be made workable ever again. Meanwhile, this very
same society's affliction was devouring the state itself. If the political
authority did not act and exercise its emergency powers, the death of
that society would come about in a fratricidal clash of arms, a bloody
social revolution" (Marcos

 Page 554
1979: 133). In his critique of old-society democracy, Marcos pointed
out that "it existed in a political culture which was populist,
personalist, and individualist in orientation." This kind of political
culture, "destructive of human freedom," needed fundamental
alteration, not just modification. Thus, when he launched his
"September 21 Movement" in 1972, Marcos argued the necessity of a
"revolution from the center" whereby the state would initiate a radical
transformation of society.
Ideally, the kind of social change Marcos envisaged would narrow the
gap between rich and poor, "if only for the sake of social stability."
The stability of Philippine society was seen to rest on "the
effectiveness of government as a patron of the poor." The social
mission of government, amid widespread poverty, was to "turn wards
into free men" (Marcos 1979: 82-83). In practice, however, the
Marcos regime failed to achieve its stated goals because political
order and stability were given priority at the expense of basic
individual rights and freedoms. As centralized state power increased,
the security interests of the state and those of the individuals in society
came into conflict. In the absence of effective checks on executive
powerCongress had been abolished and the Supreme Court
emasculatedthe state's predatory tendencies were amplified and "state"
interests came to signify those of the Marcos family and their cronies.
Corruption and lack of accountability led to steady economic decline
(Hill and Jayasurya 1984; Boyce 1993). Wage earners' average
monthly income fell some 20 percent between 1972 and 1980;
agriculture suffered a drop of 30 percent and commerce 40 percent
(Schirmer and Shalom 1987: 176). Whereas the poor's share of
national income decreased during the same period, the rich increased
their share. By 1981, the top 10 percent of families received twice the
income of the bottom 60 percent: this was clearly not the New Society
envisioned in 1972. Growth of gross national product declined
steadily, from an average of 6.3 percent (1975-79) to 1.3 percent
steadily, from an average of 6.3 percent (1975-79) to 1.3 percent
(1980-84) (De Dios 1993-94: 20). By the time the Marcoses were
forced into exile in February 1986, the Philippines' foreign debt had
surged close to $30 billion, much of it ''behest loans" that benefited
Marcos's family and his cronies.

Although the legitimacy of the authoritarian regime was challenged

both by moderate opposition groups and by growing communist and
Muslim insurgent movements, Marcos sustained his hold on power by
manipulating the security concerns generated by his own misrule. The
prevailing Cold War environment was especially helpful in
guaranteeing the continued flow of U.S. military assistance, given the
strategic location of American bases at Subic Bay and Clark Field and
the communist forward movement in Indochina. Marcos portrayed
himself as a

 Page 555
staunch American ally who needed sustained U.S. support in the battle
against insurgency (Bonner 1988; Karnow 1989).

4 Increased military assistance after 1972 bolstered a defense budget

that grew nearly tenfold from 608 million pesos that year to 5.3 billion
in 1977. Military expenditures as a percentage of the national budget
nearly doubled to 22.6 percent in 1977. The Armed Forces of the
Philippines (AFP) increased in number to more than 113,000 in 1976
from just 35,000 in the early 1960s. The paramilitary Philippine
Constabulary also carried out counterinsurgency operations alongside
expanded "home defense units" and an Integrated National Police
force brought under centralized control. (Local police had previously
been under the charge of municipal mayors.)

Ironically, the growth of the military was accompanied by an increase

in the strength of both the CPP/NPA and the MNLF.5 According to
the Philippine Department of National Defense, the number of NPA
regular forces grew from 1,320 in 1972 to 4,900 at the end of the
1970s, then increased rapidly to 7,750 in 1982 and to 14,360 in 1984.
In 1985 the CPP/NPA registered a dramatic 57 percent growth rate to
reach a strength of 22,500 (Department of National Defense 1990: 7).
Unlike the earlier Huk rebellion, which was concentrated in central
Luzon, the NPA established a presence throughout the country
(excepting only strongholds of the MNLF), stretching AFP resources
thinly. The CPP's regular armed units, moreover, represented only the
tip of a submerged political iceberg that by 1985 posed a realistic
threat of eventually sinking the Marcos regime. An American
congressional study released in November 1985 indicated that "the
insurgency operates at various levels in nearly every one of the
Philippines' 73 provinces" with CPP political organizations
established in one-third of the country's 41,400 barangays, and in
control of an estimated 12 percent of the provinces (U.S. Senate 1985:
2).
There was increasing concern in Washington about the absence of any
"coordinated civilian-political doctrine to combat the insurgency."
Although Marcos regarded the NPA as "a terrorist problem requiring,
in the first instance, a military response," he was "more interested in
his personal security and power" than in the military's effectiveness
(Kessler 1989: 119). In an effort to maximize his own control he
promoted loyalists such as his former chauffeur, fellow Ilocano, and
relative Fabian Ver, who became Armed Forces chief of staff in 1981,
and implemented a centralized system of Regional Unified
Commands, which reported directly to Ver. At the same time,
however, he allowed the growth of local paramilitaries whose chain of
command and source of authority were often left deliberately obscure.
The Civilian Home Defense Forces

 Page 556
(CHDF), established in 1976, provided a legal umbrella for a wide
range of quasi-religious anticommunist cults, private plantation
"landguards," and exercisers of provincial political muscle, which
were now invested with state authority in the name of
counterinsurgency. On the turbulent land frontier of Mindanao, in
particular, the CHDF was at the forefront of widespread human rights
violations as peasants were evicted by corporate-controlled
paramilitaries and resistance was indiscriminately crushed. The most
infamous groups included the "Lost Command" of Colonel Carlos
"Charlie" Lademora, most active in and around the Guthrie palm-oil
plantation in Agusan del Sur, and the "Philippine Liberation
Organization" (PLO) led by a certain ''Kapitan Inggo," which
terrorized Davao City in the mid-1980s.

6 Many of these groups drew upon a syncretic, animistic folk

Christianity that fueled visceral anticommunism, and evolved into the
"vigilante" movements of the Aquino era. Widespread human rights
violations generated broad opposition, and the military's
ineffectiveness in containing insurgency created resentment within the
ranks against unprofessional leadership, leading to the formation of a
Reform the Armed Forces Movement (RAM). RAM recast the
military's fundamental security referent in terms that transcended the
Marcos regime, and indeed played a key role in his overthrow.

The military approach to the insurgency problem was accompanied by

political and social efforts to undercut support for the insurgents.
Marcos attempted to institute reforms: administrative purges in the
civilian bureaucracy and the military were meant to rid them of
corrupt officials; a land reform decree was supposed to redistribute
land to poor farmers in the countryside; agricultural credit programs
were extended to small farmers. Initially land reform enhanced
Marcos's legitimacy in the countryside, blunted foreign criticism of
his government, and put the landed elite on the defensive. Land
reform created expectations about Marcos's New Society that
deterred, albeit temporarily, recruitment of communist insurgents in
the rural areas (Wurfel 1988: 166, 227). In the urban areas, Marcos
tried to contain the influence of the CPP/NPA in the labor sector by
underwriting the creation of the Trade Union Congress of the
Philippines, a labor union whose leaders, known to be sympathetic to
the Soviet Union, were co-opted by Marcos. In the youth sector, the
Kabataang Barangay was set up to politically socialize young people
into the regime's "New Society Movement."
Diplomatic efforts helped to preclude the possibility of external
support for the CPP/NPA, which was in any case negligible. Relations
were established with China (1975) and subsequently with Vietnam,
and a pledge of mutual noninterference was signed with Vietnam in
1978

 Page 557
(Wurfel 1988: 182). Diplomacy was more significant in
supplementing the military approach in the case of the Muslim
secessionist problem. Initially Marcos adopted a "total war" policy
against the MNLF and related groups, deploying more than half of the
AFP in Mindanao and Sulu. Later, in the mid-1970s, the military
approach was complemented by social and economic instruments in
an effort to win some of the MNLF supporters to the government side.
Arabic instruction was permitted in some public schools in
predominantly Muslim provinces; university scholarships for Muslims
were expanded; a Code of Philippine Muslim Personal Law was
promulgated; the Philippine Amanah Bank provided financial
assistance to Muslim entrepreneurs on generous terms; Muslim title to
ancestral land was recognized in law. Marcos also increased
appointments of Muslims to government positions (Wurfel 1988:
159).
What pushed Marcos into considering a negotiated settlement of the
Muslim insurgency problem was pressure from the oil-rich Arab
countries. The world oil crisis of 1973 did not spare the Philippines,
and Marcos had to make concessions to those countries with regard to
the Muslim problem in Mindanao. In September of that year, he
allowed several high-ranking representatives from member states of
the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to visit the
Philippines on a fact-finding mission to Muslim provinces. The team
concluded that only a political solutionnot the military and
socioeconomic approaches pursued by the Marcos regimecould bring
an end to the conflict in the southern Philippines. Subsequently, at its
foreign ministers' conference held in Kuala Lumpur in 1974, the OIC
recommended that the Philippine government hold direct negotiations
with MNLF chief Nur Misuari to begin the political process of ending
the Muslim insurgency. The OIC, at the same time, refused to give the
MNLF a belligerent status (similar to that of the Palestine Liberation
Organization), a decision that clearly represented a victory for Marcos
(Wurfel 1988: 159-60).
Nonetheless, the MNLF enjoyed extensive external support. Three
countries provided both moral and material assistance to the MNLF:
Malaysia, Libya, and Saudi Arabia. Malaysia was reported to have
provided logistic support to the Moro fighters not so much because of
Kuala Lumpur's commitment to religious fraternity, but as a reaction
to the Philippines' secret military plan to invade the disputed territory
of Sabah in the late 1960s. At the federal level, the government of
Malaysia supported the MNLF struggle as a means of pressuring
Manila to drop its claim to Sabah; at the state level, Tun Datu
Mustapha Harun, the chief minister of Sabah, reportedly allowed the
MNLF sanctuary for training, supply, and communications purposes
(Che Man 1990: 138-39).

 Page 558
Libya's support was primarily motivated by its commitment to Islamic
brotherhood and the Koranic obligation to relieve the persecution of
the ummah (Islamic community). Libya reportedly provided about $1
million to cover the expenses of some 300 Muslim recruits who were
undergoing training in Sabah in the early 1970s. After martial law was
declared Libya began to deliver funds, weapons, and other equipment
to the MNLF under the leadership of Nur Misuari. An estimated $35
million was contributed to the MNLF by Libya and the other OIC
countries between 1972 and 1975. Libya also attempted to persuade
member states of the OIC to impose sanctions against the Marcos
regime, though without much success, and Muammar Qaddafi's full
support for the MNLF was later moderated under pressure from the
other OIC countries. Libya then played a mediating role between
Manila and the MNLF. The Tripoli agreement, signed in December
1976, provided for an autonomous government in the predominantly
Muslim provinces of the southern Philippines (Che Man 1990: 140-
41).
Saudi Arabia also played a mediating role in the Mindanao conflict,
providing both funds and sanctuary to other Muslim secessionist
factions such as the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the
Bangsa Moro Islamic Liberation Organization (BMILO). Through
agencies such as the Muslim World League and Darul Ifta, Saudi
Arabia also provided assistance to a number of projects in the Muslim
areas of the southern Philippines. In 1980, when the Marcos regime
failed to implement the 1976 Tripoli agreement in good faith, Saudi
Arabia stopped its oil shipments to the Philippinesan effective
instrument for pressuring Manila to abide by the agreement because
about 40 percent of the country's oil supply came from Saudi Arabia
(Che Man 1990: 141-42).
In an effort to improve his regime's image throughout the Muslim
world, Marcos decided to strengthen the Philippines' diplomatic
relations with Islamic states in the Middle East and Africa. This
campaign took on many forms, such as the exchange of special high-
level missions, intensified information programs, and, most
significant, the realignment of Philippine foreign policy toward the
Middle East. During the Arab-Israeli conflict in 1973, the Philippines
condemned Israel's occupation of Arab territories as an act of
aggression, sided with the Arab call for Israeli withdrawal, and
recognized the Palestine Liberation Organization as the legitimate
representative of the Palestinian people. First Lady Imelda Marcos
was sent as a special envoy on a diplomatic offensive in the Middle
East, highlighted by a meeting with Qaddafi that led to the signing of
the Tripoli agreement (Che Man 1990: 145-46).

 Page 559
In April 1977 a referendum on autonomy was held as called for by the
agreement, but it was boycotted by a majority of Muslims, who
doubted Manila's good faith in implementing its terms. Moreover, the
socioeconomic instruments of the state were seen largely as a means
to assimilate the Muslims into the "Christian nation" they had resisted
for centuries for fear of losing their identity as the Muslim ummah
(Bauzon 1991; Che Man 1990). The involvement of outside powers in
the conflict also contributed to the failure of the political settlement.
Not only did the OIC's moral and material support for the MNLF and
other groups strengthen their intransigent stance, but Marcos did not
seek to find a political solution to the conflict so much as to bolster his
administration's image in the Muslim world. The war resumed, though
at a lower level of intensity than in 1972-76, and negotiations were
not revived until the accession of Corazon Aquino to power in 1986.
Security Under Aquino
The historic "People Power" uprising of February 22-25, 1986, which
ended the authoritarian regime, was sparked by an attempted RAM
coup and joined by a diverse coalition of anti-Marcos forces including
the church, the disenfranchised oligarchy, the middle class, and
spontaneous masses, as well as some segments of the organized left.
The focal point was Corazon Aquino, widow of slain opposition
leader Benigno Aquino, who embodied the coalition's contradictory
security interests. Her government was likewise a living contradiction,
contested from within and from without by several opposed elements
in the February coalition: military, oligarchy, and some left-leaning
groups in civil society. The February "revolution" was first and
foremost a restoration of the pre-martial law status quo, and Aquino's
priority was the reestablishment of traditional democratic institutions
(Thompson 1995). Under the 1987 Constitution the presidential form
of government, upholding the separation of powers among the three
coequal branches of government, was restored along with the system
coequal branches of government, was restored along with the system
of checks and balances. Civilian supremacy over the military was also
enshrined in the constitution.

7 An elaborate set of provisions was written to prevent the recurrence

of the abuses committed under Marcos. A search warrant or warrant
of arrest can be issued only by a civilian judge, for example, whereas
under Marcos's 1973 Constitution, any "responsible officer" was
allowed to issue such a warrant, including any military officer. In
many instances in the past, the Marcos regime issued military orders
that included the authority to detain suspected persons. The new
constitution further

 Page 560
states that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus may be suspended
only in case of invasion or rebellion (Nolledo 1990: 114, 116).
The powers of the executive were likewise limited under the 1987
charter. The salient provisions pertain to limiting the term of the
president to a single six-year term; the public's right to know the state
of the president's health; the prerogative of the legislature to revoke
the president's decision to declare martial law; the authority of the
Supreme Court to review the basis for proclamation of martial law;
and the provision that a state of martial law does not suspend the
operation of the country's constitution, nor does it supplant the
functioning of the civil courts or legislative assemblies or authorize
the conferment of jurisdiction on military courts or agencies over
civilians where civil courts are able to function (Nolledo 1990: 596).
Under the Aquino government the informal sectors of society also
gained the opportunity to play a role in strengthening democratic
institutions. Aquino launched the Kabisig program, a partnership
between government and various people's organizations and
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to deliver basic goods and
services at the grassroots level. A number of former communists
resurfaced to work in the burgeoning NGO and cooperative
community, whose phenomenal growth provided new structures and
potential mechanisms for political change at both the national and
local levels.

During the first year of the Aquino administration, the approach taken
in dealing with the communist insurgency differed dramatically from
that of Marcos. In pursuit of a political settlement and as part of her
election promise, Aquino released a number of prominent prisoners,
including CPP leader Jose Maria Sison and NPA commander Bernabe
Buscayno (Porter, 1987: 56-57). Aquino believed that most insurgents
were not hard-core Marxists but were forced to bear arms against the
government because of injustices under the Marcos regime. Out of
this conviction, two strands developed in her government's policy
toward the insurgents: first, the offer of general amnesty to those who
would lay down their arms; second, talks with the rebel leadership to
negotiate a cease-fire, ostensibly to enable her government to address
their legitimate grievances. Although many more liberal members of
the Aquino administration distrusted the CPP and doubted its
commitment to democratic values, they were nevertheless aware that
the Communist Party leadership was divided following its mistake in
calling for a boycott of the 1986 presidential elections that in fact led
to Marcos's fall. They also recognized that the party was not totally in
agreement on continuing the strategy of "protracted people's war."
The government hoped for a fundamental shift in CPP strategy that
would reduce the importance of

 Page 561
armed struggle and put more emphasis on political struggle, including
participation in elections. If a cease-fire could be negotiated between
the CPP/NPA and the Aquino government, a political settlement of
the communist insurgency problem might also be possible. The
human rights lawyers in the Aquino administration were all too aware
of the counterproductive results of the military approach during the
Marcos period, such as human rights violations by the AFP. In their
view, suppressing the insurgency by force had contributed to the
growth of the CPP/NPA in the past. It was only by restraining the
military that the insurgents' growth could be contained (Porter 1987:
57-58).
The military establishment, however, was not convinced of the merits
of the political settlement approach. It did not appeal to the mind-set
of the AFP, its professional role, or its institutional interests. Chief of
Staff General Fidel Ramos and Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile
proposed a counterinsurgency strategy aimed at defeating the
CPP/NPA through coordinated military and civilian programs. The
Ramos plan did not include negotiation with the communist
leadership. Instead it called for a combined civilian-military structure
at various levels (regional, provincial, municipal) that was adapted
from the design of U.S. counterinsurgency operations in Vietnam. It
also called for greater civilian, government, and private-sector
involvement in intelligence gathering, propaganda, and paramilitary
support for the AFP. It appears that the key objective of the military
behind the Ramos plan was to obtain a greater share of the national
budget for counterinsurgency operations, a share that might have been
significantly reduced under the negotiations strategy of Aquino.
Likewise, the plan was designed to ensure that local officials who had
been appointed by the Aquino government would cooperate with the
AFP in its counterinsurgency efforts. Many local government officials
appointed by Aquino were reportedly reluctant to get involved in the
military's counterinsurgency operations (Porter 1987: 59).
Despite the military's lobbying efforts for the adoption of the Ramos
plan, Aquino refused to accept the proposal on the grounds that it
would prejudice the prospects for a peace agreement with the
communists. Thereafter, the military leadership pressed her
government to consult more with the defense establishment on the
insurgency problem, including the details of the cease-fire agreement
being negotiated at the time. The conflict between Aquino and the
military was later exacerbated by Aquino's decision not to include any
military representative in the peace talksperceived by the military as a
concession to the CPP, which had insisted on the AFP's exclusion
(Porter 1987: 60). Subsequently, Enrile criticized the Aquino
government's plan to limit the AFP

 Page 562
to a defensive position while she pursued peace talks with the
communist insurgents. Enrile also increased pressure on her to spell
out the details of the cease-fire agreement with the CPP/NPA.
In the face of mounting criticisms from the military, Aquino withdrew
her earlier order of restrictions on AFP operations against the
insurgents but continued her administration's peace negotiations with
the communist leadership. Enrile, claiming to speak on behalf of the
entire military establishment, set out conditions for a cease-fire that
were actually aimed at scuttling any peace agreement with the
communists: no cease-fire agreement with the communists would be
recognized if it involved the surrender of sovereignty by the
government over any part of the national territory, the recognition of
any areas as being controlled by the CPP/NPA, or the
acknowledgment that any area or community was "defended" by any
armed force other than the AFP or the national police forces of the
government. These conditions were essentially aimed at precluding all
avenues for compromise that might have been contemplated by
Aquino's negotiators. They were also designed to prevent local
government units from entering into separate cease-fire agreements
with local communist units (Porter 1987: 65-66).
The rift between Aquino and the military on the insurgency issue
widened as Aquino refused to act on the AFP's counterinsurgency
proposals. Negotiations with the communist leadership met a number
of setbacks as the military continued its operations against the
insurgents. In September 1986 the military arrested Rodolfo Salas,
identified as one of the top leaders of the CPP. Then rightist elements
in the AFP reportedly staged several ambush operations against
leaders of leftist organizations, such as labor leader Rolando Olalia.
These were clearly efforts on the part of the military to derail the
peace negotiations between the Aquino government and the National
Democratic Front (NDF), which was representing the CPP/NPA.
Military pressure on the Aquino government later took the form of
aborted coups even as Enrile's RAM supporters openly talked about
the idea of changing the government while criticizing Aquino's policy
toward the communist insurgents. The initial aborted coup, called
"God Save the Queen," was aimed at eliminating the so-called leftist
sympathizers in the Aquino cabinet who were considered to be
primarily responsible for resisting the AFP's counterinsurgency
proposals. The rightist military rebels, however, failed in their
attempts to overthrow the government of Aquino because Chief of
Staff General Ramos, a known believer in civilian supremacy over the
military, threw his support behind Aquino. A cabinet revamp ensued
wherein Enrile, along

 Page 563
with suspected left-leaning cabinet members, was sacked by Aquino
in a compromise deal with the military.
A 60-day cease-fire agreement with the CPP/NPA was finally signed
in November 1986 after more than six months of negotiations that had
begun in May. The negotiation process had to hurdle a number of
fundamental disagreements over the extent of the cease-fire, the
definition of what would constitute a violation of the agreement, and
the issue of recognizing NPA-controlled areas. When the cease-fire
agreement expired, negotiations at the national level were suspended
following the "Mendiola massacre" of peasant demonstrators by
government marines in Manila in January 1987. The peace
negotiations were overshadowed by the ratification in February 1987
of the new constitution that formally legitimized the Aquino
government under a democratic regime. By enhancing the legitimacy
of the Aquino administration, the new constitution enabled it to gain
the upper hand in dealing with the rebels. In a gesture of magnanimity
following the ratification of the constitution, Aquino announced in
late February an amnesty program designed to attract rebel surrenders
(including those from the Muslim secessionist groups) by offering
financial rewards for returned weapons, livelihood training programs,
and the creation of rehabilitation centers for rebels throughout the
country (Coronel-Ferrer and Raquiza 1993: 10-11; Villanueva 1992;
Timberman 1991; Thompson 1992).
In a major shift of policy, Aquino rejected the NDF's offer in March
1987 to resume national-level peace talks with the communist rebels.
Instead her government opted to hold peace talks with regional and
local NPA commanders, taking advantage of the apparent rift within
the ranks of the CPP/NPA on the issue. In an apparent reversal of her
original stance in dealing with the insurgency problem, Aquino
announced before a graduating class of the Philippine Military
Academy on March 18 that her government was adopting a "total
war" policy vis-à-vis the communist insurgents. With the rightist
military becoming more restive and with more coup threats by RAM
rebels, Aquino's government gave in to pressure from the defense
establishment. The AFP undertook several military offensives against
the communists and arrested top-ranking CPP/NPA leaders following
Aquino's call for the AFP to "unsheathe the sword of war" against
them. For its part, the CPP/NPA countered Aquino's "total war" policy
with increased attacks in the urban centers against military soldiers
and policemen, politicians, and even American military personnel.
The NPA claimed responsibility for the assassination of three U.S.
servicemen near Clark Air Base in 1987. About fifty soldiers and
policemen were attacked by the Alex Boncayao Brigade, an urban
guerrilla unit in metropolitan Manila, including

 Page 564
Aquino's former local government secretary (Jaime Ferrer), who was
known to have advocated the formation of armed civilian vigilante
groups to help the AFP in its counterinsurgency operations (Coronel-
Ferrer and Raquiza 1993: 12-13). For the remainder of her term,
which was punctuated by major RAM-led coup attempts in August
1987 and December 1989, Aquino's government prosecuted a war
even more violent and "total" than that of its predecessor.
Two trends were especially conspicuous in AFP's "total war" under
the Aquino government from March 1987: increasing reliance upon
civilian vigilante and paramilitary groups such as Davao City's "Alsa
Masa" ("Rising of the Masses"), a concept that rapidly spread
nationwide and was portrayed as a spontaneous manifestation of
anticommunist ''People Power," and a marked escalation in the scale
of mechanical violence deployed by the government. "Low-intensity
conflict," as counter-guerrilla warfare was fashionably dubbed, went
hand in hand with higher-intensity artillery and aerial bombardment
such as had been characteristic of Marcos-era ground sweeps. This
activity was reflected in a growing number of internal refugees,
numbering some 33,600 families in Mindanao alone by 1990, more
than ten times the figure in 1985 (Citizens' Disaster Rehabilitation
Center 1991: 18; HALAD Foundation 1989).

9 The NPA also made increasing use of heavier weaponry such as

mortars, grenade launchers, and recoilless rifles as these were
captured from the military. According to AFP statistics, CPP/NPA
forces continued to grow during the first two years of the Aquino
government, reaching 25,200 by the end of 1987 (Department of
National Defense 1990: 7).

Although the new constitution mandated the dismantling of "private

armies and other armed groups" outside "regular" AFP forces,
Aquino's presidential directive ordering the abolition of the hated
CHDF was reportedly returned by Brigadier General Jose Magno
unacted upon "for revisions," a telling indicator of the imbalance
between formal civilian and informal military authority (Van der
Kroef 1988: 632-33). In July 1987 the CHDF was replaced by the
virtually indistinguishable Citizens' Armed Forces Geographical Units
(CAFGUs), composed of former CHDF participants as well as
members of vigilante groups such as the Tadtad ("hackers"), Pulahan
("red ones"), and Ituman ("black ones"). By 1992 there were almost
twice as many CAFGUs deployed across the country as the 45,000
CHDFs of 1987. As was extensively documented by domestic and
international human rights organizations, they continued to be
implicated in the torture, death and disappearance of legal political
activists and ordinary peasants as well as suspected insurgents.10

 Page 565
With regard to the Muslim secessionist problem, efforts to find a
political settlement during the Aquino period suffered the same fate.
An agreement was signed with the MNLF in September 1986
following a meeting between Aquino and Misuari wherein both
parties agreed to respect a tentative truce entered into a month earlier
and to hold substantive talks later under the auspices of the OIC. For
their part, the MILF under Hashim Salamat and the reformist faction
of the MNLF led by Dimas Pundato concurred with autonomy as the
basis of negotiations with the Aquino government. Talks with the
MNLF collapsed in July 1987, however, following Aquino's call for
"total war" against the insurgents. Misuari ordered his troops to take
on a defensive position vis-à-vis the AFP even as the Philippine
Congress started to draft autonomy bills for Mindanao and the
Cordilleras (Coronel-Ferrer and Raquiza 1993: 6, 12). The autonomy
law passed by Congress needed the ratification of both Christian and
Muslim residents in the affected provinces in Mindanao, but less than
50 percent participated in the referendum held on November 19, 1989.
The anemic showing was widely attributed to a vigorous MNLF
boycott campaign, and those living in predominantly Christian areas
overwhelmingly rejected the autonomy law. Misuari criticized the
autonomy law passed by Congress and argued that the 1976 Tripoli
agreement promised a fuller degree of autonomy for the Muslims.
Aquino later refused to entertain MNLF proposals for the resumption
of peace talks.
Overall, the failure of the political settlement approach to resolve the
insurgency problem may be attributed to the nature of civil-military
relations during the Aquino period. As an unstable coalition of
antagonistic forces under a weakened executive, the administration
was vulnerable to Enrile's restive RAM supporters, who were able to
scuttle Aquino's peace talks formula by intimidating her government
with coup threats. At the same time, Aquino's inability to control the
military gave the communist insurgents a reason to abandon the peace
negotiations and resume hostilities against government forces,
especially after Aquino announced her government's "total war"
policy against both the CPP/NPA and the Muslim secessionist rebels.
The restoration of traditional oligarchic democracy led to a Congress
unwilling to pass the substantive reforms needed to address the root
causes of social unrest.
Aquino's economic programs were scuttled by political instability and
by the failure of the legislature to pass meaningful economic reform
laws. Although Congress passed the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform
Law during Aquino's time, most of its provisions protected the
interests of the landowners. And despite the passage of the Foreign
Investments Act, her government also failed to attract substantial new
foreign

 Page 566
investment because of its perceived instability. The investment law
itself contained a significant number of exclusion lists that specified
sectors where foreigners were not allowed to invest in the Philippines.
The problem of monopolies in strategic sectors of the economy
(banking, telecommunications, transport) was not dealt with squarely
by the administration, whose efforts were focused more on the
privatization of government enterprises and the recovery of "ill-gotten
wealth" from the Marcoses and their cronies.

11 In the final analysis, the Aquino administration was a transitional

period, a holding operation against restored martial rule. Its supporters
felt vindicated enough by the peaceful transfer of power to her
anointed successor, Fidel Ramos.

Security Under Ramos

As a matter of stated policy, national security under the Ramos
administration was broadly defined as "a condition wherein the
people's way of life and institutions, their territorial integrity and
sovereignty, as well as their welfare and well-being are protected and
enhanced" (National Security Council 1993: 1). This basic definition
attempts to strike a balance between the security interests of the state
and those of the people.
The broad conception of national security under the Ramos
government takes into consideration the interrelationship of social,
economic, and political factors and how all those factors affect the
overall security of the nation. Upon assuming office in June 1992,
Ramos vowed to continue with the process of democratic
consolidation in the country that had begun under the Aquino
government. The democratic order, however, was seen not as an end
in itself but as a means to attain national political unity. In a society
that has long been torn by internal strife and rebellion, Ramos
recognized early on that the persistence of the insurgency problem
would deny the country the political stability prerequisite to achieving
economic growth and development.
In the short term, the Ramos government adopted as an immediate
goal the attainment of a relatively peaceful political environment in
the country. Unlike the Marcos regime, however, which saw the need
to rely solely on the state's martial forces to bring about internal peace
and order, Ramos did not believe that such an approach would be
effective in dealing with the insurgency problem. His government
opted for a comprehensive settlement of the armed rebellions, but it
reserved the right to use military force if necessary. Rapid economic
growth and development became a priority concern for this president
who was elected with less than a quarter of the vote. Economic
growth, however,

 Page 567
would serve as a means to a higher end: the attainment of social
equity and increased economic opportunities for the majority of
Filipinos. Both the Aquino and Ramos administrations recognized at
the outset the direct linkage between massive poverty and the
persistence of armed rebellion in the country; the latter, however, was
more candid in its identification of the oligarchic structure of society
as the root cause of the insurgency problem. As Ramos's influential
national security adviser, the retired general Jose T. Almonte, had put
it,
They talk about the need for national identity, of what the country should
be in the year 2020. They don't say, however, who we'd have to be up
against to achieve that. It's only the Communist Party and its New People's
Army who have defined that the struggle has to be against the feudalists,
the oligarchs. The oligarchs condemn the communists' anti-democratic
means, but they just keep quiet about the communists' target. Why?
Because they'll have to identify themselves as the problem (Tiglao 1995:
28).

As expected, the traditional oligarchic families attempted to resist the

Ramos government's efforts to undertake meaningful economic
reforms, as had been the case during the Aquino period (Hutchcroft
1994). Nevertheless, Ramos made it the cornerstone of his
government's program to liberalize the economy of the Philippines in
an effort to spur economic growth. His administration pursued full
deregulation of the economy by dismantling protectionist barriers and
providing proper incentives and support to make the nation's
industries more efficient and competitive in the world market (Ramos
1992, 1993, 1993-94, 1995). The prime targets were the big
monopolies in the banking, shipping, telecommunications, and
insurance industries that had long been protected during the Marcos
and Aquino periods. Opening these sectors of the economy to foreign
competition forced the local industries to become more efficient and
provide better service (Alburo 1993; Habito 1993-94; De Dios 1993-
94, 1995; National Economic and Development Authority 1993-94).
External security was another high-priority concern for the Ramos
administration in light of the country's vulnerable position following
the withdrawal of American military facilities at Subic Bay and Clark
Field in late 1992. For a long time, the U.S. bases in the country
enabled the government to allocate its limited resources to internal
security concerns. But when the Philippine Senate rejected the
extension of the 1947 Military Bases Agreement in September 1991,
the government had to start thinking of building the Philippines'
external defense capability. The full realization of the country's
vulnerability to external threats

 Page 568
came in February 1995, when the AFP discovered a Chinese military
buildup on Mischief Reef (Panganiban Reef), one of the islands
claimed by the Philippines in the disputed Spratlys in the South China
Sea.
Historically the Spratlys had served as a staging point for the Japanese
invasion of the Philippines in World War II, and that experience
reinforced the perception of a threat posed by the Chinese buildup on
Mischief Reef. The presence of Chinese troops in the area impinges
on both the territorial integrity of the Philippines and its exclusive
economic zone. It is also seen as undermining the collective efforts of
other small claimant states in the region to pursue a peaceful
settlement of the South China Sea dispute. There is a perception
among some Filipino policy makers that the incident on Mischief Reef
is part of Beijing's long-term goal of enhancing its territorial claims in
the area. If the Chinese buildup in the area goes on unopposed, the
security of the sea-lanes of communication in the South China Sea
could be undermined. That possibility cannot be discounted in the
face of a widely held belief in the region that China is currently
building its blue-water naval capabilities, which could be used to
defend its maritime claims. Moreover, a number of Chinese policy
statements and actions have done nothing to dispel the perception of a
"China threat" in the region, a perception shared by some Filipino
policy makers. In 1992, for example, the passage of China's Law of
the Sea essentially reasserted its claim of sovereignty over the entire
South China Sea.
In dealing with the country's insurgency problem, the Ramos
administration essentially adopted the strategy of combining the
political settlement approach with military force. In his speech before
the Philippine Congress in July 1992, a month after his inauguration
as president, Ramos announced four initiatives to promote "peace and
security" under his government: the repeal of the antisubversion law,
which effectively legalized the CPP and similar organizations; the
grant of amnesty to insurgents and military rebels; the creation of a
National Unification Commission (NUC); and the review of all cases
of rebels under detention or serving sentence. These political
initiatives were aimed primarily at projecting his government's sincere
desire to achieve political unity and to end the insurgency problem,
but not at the expense of the security of the state. The antisubversion
law was repealed by Congress in September, and the NUC was
created in the same month. As an advisory body to the president, the
NUC was charged with making recommendations, within 90 days,
pertaining to a comprehensive amnesty program and the government's
peace agenda. Thereafter Ramos appointed key government
emissaries to begin exploratory talks with the NDF, the MNLF and
other Muslim secessionist groups, and

 Page 569
leaders of the rightist military rebels led by RAM, on the political
settlement of the insurgency problem.
Even as the framework for a political settlement of the insurgency
problem was being laid down by the government, military operations
by the AFP against the rebels were sustained amid continued attacks
by communist insurgents and the Muslim secessionists. The NDF
initially rejected Ramos's offer of amnesty, which was conditional on
the rebels' laying down of arms. At the same time, the NDF sent
feelers to the government on the resumption of peace talks on a
limited agenda. In an effort to improve the atmosphere for peace
negotiations with the rebels, Ramos ordered a series of high-ranking
communist leaders and RAM rebel soldiers released from detention.
These initiatives appear to have encouraged the insurgents to take up
Ramos's offer of talks. Following exploratory exchanges in The
Hague, a communiqué was issued by a joint panel of government
emissaries and Jose Maria Sison and Luis Jalandoni, CPP founder and
NDF vice chairperson, respectively. Gregorio "Gringo" Honasan,
leader of the renegade RAM, along with rebel Marcos-loyalist troops,
also indicated their willingness to participate in formal peace
negotiations with the government through the NUC. In October 1992,
MNLF leader Nur Misuari returned to the Philippines from self-exile
in Libya to negotiate with the government following exploratory talks
in Tripoli. Misuari agreed to negotiations without preconditions, and
Ramos granted observer status to the OIC in the peace negotiations
with the MNLF.
In initial talks with communist leaders in The Hague, the government
agreed to hold formal negotiations without preconditions, based on
mutually acceptable principles, to resolve the armed conflict. On the
substantive agenda were the issues of human rights and international
humanitarian law, socioeconomic reform, political and constitutional
reform, an end to armed hostilities, and the disposition of forces.
Subsequently the NUC refined The Hague joint declaration signed by
representatives of the Philippine government and the NDF to include,
among other points, the dismantling of all private armies, strict
implementation of relevant laws, improvements in the administration
of law, protection of the environment, provision for victims of armed
conflict, and emphasis on the economic components of national
unification. The negotiations with the NDF failed to prosper, however,
because of major stumbling blocks: the refusal of the communist
insurgents to lay down their arms and recognize the legitimacy of the
Ramos government; the NDF's insistence that the government grant it
belligerency status in the negotiations; and disagreements on the
venue of the talks. The NDF also resented the Ramos government's
policy of pursuing dialogues with

 Page 570
regional party committees while ignoring calls for resumption of
peace negotiations at the national level. The open split within the
ranks of the CPP/NPA between hard-line "reaffirmists" of protracted
people's war and opposition "rejectionists," a split that emerged fully
at the end of 1992, has ensured the government's upper hand in
dealing with the communist insurgents, both in political and military
terms (Solidum 1994: 237).

12

Substantial progress has been achieved in negotiations with the

MNLF. Because of factional divisions within the MNLF and other
secessionist groups, however, hostilities have continuednot only
between government forces and rebels but also among the warring
factions. The AFP has conducted a series of military offensives
against a "lost command" of the MNLF, called the Abu Sayyaf, which
reportedly has been responsible for a number of terrorist activities in
Mindanao since 1992 (Turner 1995). Another faction, the MILF, was
involved in a series of attacks against a government irrigation project
in North Cotabato. Notwithstanding these military encounters, the
Ramos government persisted in its negotiations with the MNLF,
which threatened to withdraw on several occasions if the military
offensives continued.
Following a series of talks held in Jakarta, the government and the
MNLF agreed to a political settlement in June 1996 and signed a final
peace agreement on September 2. The agreement resulted in the
installation of MNLF leader Nur Misuari as governor of fourteen
autonomous provinces in Mindanao following elections held a week
after the signing of the peace pact. The agreement provided for the
setting up of the Southern Philippine Council for Peace and
Development (SPCPD), a transitional body to be headed by Misuari.
The SPCPD will be guided by a consultative assembly composed of
local officials and representatives from NGOs. The MNLF will
supervise economic development projects in provinces covered by the
council, but it was not allowed to oversee peacekeeping operations in
the autonomous area of fourteen provinces and nine cities. Two key
issues were left unresolved, however, that could serve as stumbling
blocks to the SPCPD's viability: the MNLF's demand to set up its own
regional police force of 20,000 former guerrillas and the integration of
Muslim insurgents in the national armed forces (AOL Reuters
[Internet], June 23, 1996). Moreover, the apprehensions of the
Christian community in Mindanao (mainly on the part of big
landowners and political clans in the area), manifested in sizable
demonstrations following the signing of the agreement, could become
a potential source of conflict and undermine its full implementation.
The relative success of the negotiations

 Page 571
can be attributed to the MNLF's change of position on the goal of an
independent nation-state, abandoned under pressure from OIC
member states. As host to the government-MNLF talks, Indonesia too
had apparently influenced the rebel leadership to moderate its
position.
The Ramos government has also entered into peace talks with the
Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), a breakaway faction of the
MNLF that had been fighting the government in order to establish an
Islamic state in Mindanao. A peace agreement that may be concluded
with the MILF could enhance further the prospects for a lasting peace
in the southern Philippines and enable the government's economic
development projects in the area to finally take off. In April 1997, the
Ramos administration announced an allocation of $1.6 billion for
Mindanao to develop infrastructure, power, housing, irrigation, and
livelihood projects in the region. Likewise, Ramos gave priority to the
Muslim autonomous areas in Mindanao in his efforts to attract foreign
investors into the country. A number of business projects in the area
involving Malaysia, Arab countries, and some member countries of
the European Union have been negotiated since the signing of the
peace agreement between the government and the MNLF.
Negotiations with the RAM rebelswho had greater confidence in
Ramos, their former military chief, than in Aquinodid not meet
serious obstacles.

13 Even so, the issues raised by the rebel soldiers became more
comprehensive, including social, economic, and political reform.
Many of these concerns have been addressed by the Ramos
administration, especially those pertaining to specific reforms within
the AFP. Gregorio Honasan's victory in the senatorial elections held in
May 1995 gives the RAM leadership a chance to be heard in the
legislature, at least for the next six years, which augurs well for the
political settlement of military rebellion against the state.

In the economic sphere, a key element of the Ramos agenda is the

pursuit of liberalization. As noted earlier, economic reform is seen as
closely linked to the solution of the insurgency problem, given its root
causes in economic and social inequality. The framework for
economic recovery and growth is embodied in a strategy termed
"Philippines 2000." This program envisages the achievement, by the
year 2000, of a per capita income of at least $1,000; economic growth
of at least 6 percent; and a decline in the incidence of poverty from 50
percent to 30 percent (Ramos 1993-94: 120). In order to push his
economic reform agenda, Ramos had to work closely with Congress,
which provides the legal infrastructure for his reform policies. Ramos
has recognized from the outset that he needs legislative cooperation if
his reform efforts are to succeed. Aquino did not enjoy smooth
working relations with the

 Page 572
legislature: her appointments to important cabinet positions were
rejected by members of the bicameral Commission on Appointments,
legislation on reforms was delayed, and budget negotiations with the
legislature were difficult (Parreñas 1993: 277-78) Notwithstanding the
gains so far achieved by the Ramos administration, it too faces a
number of constraints on reform. The predominance of the traditional
oligarchy in the legislature may prove to be a major impediment to a
faster pace of structural adjustment in the economy. Reform initiatives
may be watered down by escape clausesas was clearly the case with
Aquino's Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law, which effectively
exempted much of the land owned by the oligarchy. Political
bargaining may continue to impede the implementation of projects in
the transport and telecommunications industries and regional
economic programs such as the ASEAN Free Trade Area (Riedinger
1994: 139-46, 1995: 209-16; Gochoco-Bautista and Faustino 1994).
The political dominance of traditional oligarchs, however, may have
started to wane, as suggested by the changing composition of
Congress. In May 1995 a number of legislators from outside the
traditional political clans were elected on the basis of reform
credentials or cabinet performance in the Aquino and Ramos
administrations. This trend may be partly attributed to the changing
attitude of the voting public, whose preference for a new breed of
politicians has been increasing since 1986. Change is also occurring in
politics at the local level as NGOs and people's organizations exert
increasing influence to unseat traditional politicians ("trapos") in the
countryside.
The principal constraints on Ramos's economic reform program
derive, of course, from the nature of the country's political system
itself. Elected as a minority president, Ramos must rely on building
coalitions in the legislature to ensure that his policy initiatives will be
supported by law. Political bargaining can hardly be avoided,
especially under a presidential form of government that is often
especially under a presidential form of government that is often
considered a gridlock system. This reality partially explains persistent
calls, mostly from Ramos supporters, for a shift in the country's
political system from a presidential to a parliamentary form. But so
long as political parties lack discipline and politics dwells more on
personalities than on issues, the problem of political bargaining will
remain.

14

External Security: The South China Sea and Growing Regionalism

The Philippine Senate's decision on September 16, 1991, not to extend
the 1947 Military Bases Agreement with the United States fundamen-

 Page 573
tally altered the external defense posture of the country. The presence
of U.S. military bases had long served as an effective deterrent to
external threats, but their withdrawal in late 1992 rendered the
Philippines' external defense capability weak.

15 The AFP was thus forced to undertake a modernization plan

designed to reorient the military toward external defense.

Ramos signed the AFP Modernization Act into law in February 1995.
Its passage came at a most opportune timeclose upon the discovery of
a Chinese military buildup on Mischief Reef, one of the islands
claimed by the Philippines in the Kalayaan Group of the Spratlys. The
principal thrusts of the military modernization program under the law
are, essentially, (1) development of a self-reliant and strategically
credible "Citizens Armed Force," the reconfiguration of the AFP
structure, and the professionalization of the military; (2) reforms in
the recruitment, training, employment, and management of AFP
personnel; (3) development, validation, or modification of AFP
doctrines; (4) acquisition and upgrading of appropriate technology and
equipment; and (5) relocation, improvement, and construction of
bases and other facilities. The law's provisions on doctrine clearly
recognize the need to reorient the AFP from an internally to an
externally directed force. The law called for the implementation of the
AFP modernization program over a period of fifteen years and
provided for a ceiling of 50 billion pesos (or U.S.$2 billion) for the
first five years, beginning in 1996. Its provisions indicate the order of
priority in terms of developing the capabilities of the AFPnamely,
naval, air, and ground defense. The need to improve naval defense
was highlighted by the Mischief Reef incident.16 Although the
Philippine navy was obviously no match for China's maritime
capabilities, that did not deter the AFP from conducting limited strikes
on nearby islands in an effort to destroy markers reportedly installed
by the Chinese.
Given the country's weak external defense, the Ramos government
had to rely primarily on diplomatic pressure against China on the
issue. The main strategy was to undertake a series of diplomatic
offensives, bringing international opinion to bear against Chinese
actions in the Spratlys. Both bilateral and multilateral approaches (the
latter primarily through ASEAN) were pursued. The Ramos
government strongly protested China's continued occupation of
Mischief Reef and denounced its buildup in the area as clearly
undermining the spirit of ASEAN's 1992 Manila Declaration on the
South China Sea. To sustain the pressure on China, the Philippine
navy ferried a group of local and international journalists close to
Mischief Reef, in an act the Chinese government labeled
"provocative." As a form of diplomatic leverage,

 Page 574
Ramos refused to give in to demands that Chinese fishermen
apprehended by the Philippine coast guard within the country's
exclusive economic zone in March be repatriated. Charged with
illegal fishing and smuggling, they were released only when China
agreed to bilateral talks on the South China Sea. Those talks resulted
in a joint statement in August 1995 indicating Beijing's commitment
to abide by a ''code of conduct" in the South China Sea signed by the
two countries. Among other things, the agreement stipulated that the
parties would refrain from any destabilizing activities in the area and
would adhere to the spirit of ASEAN's 1992 Manila Declaration. A
similar agreement was signed by the Philippines and Vietnam in
November.
China had been put on the defensive when senior ASEAN officials
collectively raised the Mischief Reef issue at the first ASEAN-China
dialogue in Hangzhou in April 1995. ASEAN's support for the
Philippines sent a clear message that the group would not tolerate any
destabilizing unilateral actions by the Chinese in the South China Sea.
At the height of the diplomatic tussle with China over Mischief Reef,
the Ramos government was careful not to allow Vietnam to enter the
picture, because that would only strengthen China's perception that
ASEAN was emerging as an anti-China bloc following Vietnam's
entry into the organization. Within the Philippine bureaucracy, there is
apparently no consensus on whether China should be considered an
immediate external threat to the Philippines in light of the Mischief
Reef incident.

17 Nevertheless, playing the Vietnam card vis-à-vis China remains an

option for some foreign policy bureaucrats as far as the South China
Sea dispute is concerned.

The Mischief Reef incident concretized the threat posed to the

Philippines by the unresolved territorial disputes in the Spratlys.
During his trip to Vietnam in March 1994, Ramos proposed to his
Vietnamese counterpart the establishment of a joint commission on
the South China Sea to undertake wide-ranging studies on the Spratlys
issue. The resulting commission may explore such ideas as
demilitarization of the area, maintenance of the status quo, and
cooperative ventures among the countries concerned (Ramos 1995:
236-37). This proposal became the basis for the Ramos government's
pursuit of a multilateral approach to joint development of the South
China Seaa strategy that does not sit well with Beijing, which prefers
to limit joint development of the area to bilateral agreements with
other claimant states.
The Philippines may be expected to pursue its limited claim in the
Spratlys through a concerted diplomatic approach with the rest of the
ASEAN claimant states as well as by seeking support from the United
States and Japan.18 Given the AFP's inability to engage the Chinese

 Page 575
military in defense of the Philippines' territorial interests in the
Spratlys, this appears to be the most pragmatic approach. Although
the Philippines might wish to invoke the provisions of its mutual
defense treaty with the United States, that option remains foreclosed.
The United States does not recognize any claims in the Spratlys
dispute. Nor does it consider islands in the area claimed by Manila to
be part of the Philippines' "metropolitan territory" covered under the
treaty. Ultimately the Philippines would have to rely on self-help in
the event of a military confrontation with China or any other claimant
state over the Spratlys.
Overall, the diplomatic instruments used by the Philippine
government in dealing with the threat posed by China in the Spratlys
dispute appear to have had some limited success, if only in the short
term. But to lend credibility to its diplomatic strategy, the Philippines
will have to build up and modernize its external defense capability.
Financing the modernization of the AFP will depend on sustained
economic growth, however, which itself depends on the achievement
of long-term internal political stability.
The Philippines' diplomatic strategy vis-à-vis China on the Spratlys
conflict was put to a test in late April 1997 when the AFP discovered
four armed Chinese naval vessels in the area claimed by Manila.
Although China withdrew its ships following diplomatic protests
made by the Ramos government, the Chinese embassy in Manila
defended China's right to conduct marine surveys in the area as China
asserted its sovereignty over the Spratlys and adjacent waters. That
incident, along with China's continuing dispute with Vietnam over oil-
drilling activities in the Spratlys, indicates that although Beijing may
show much flexibility in dealing with other claimants in the South
China Sea at the diplomatic level, it would not hesitate to commit
what may be termed as "soft aggression" in the area. Undoubtedly,
such behavior may be seen as part of China's overall strategy to
further enhance its claim in the South China Sea.
Challenges to the Democratic Order
The foregoing discussion of conceptions of national security in the
Philippines indicates that although it is a comprehensive and evolving
concept covering a range of domestic and external security concerns,
it has revolved mostly around internal problems related to nation-and
state-building. Further, the Philippine state still exhibits several
characteristics of a traditional state.

19 It has yet to demonstrate many of the hallmarks of a modern state,

such as a clear distinction between the internal and the external or the
public and the private, or a high degree

 Page 576
of internal pacification and administrative reach. Both authoritarian
and democratic regimes have faced major internal security threats
focused on identity, legitimacy, and socioeconomic grievances since
the late 1960s, primarily from the CPP/NPA and the MNLF. These
threats have waxed and waned in relative importance during the
period under consideration. Whereas the MNLF threat predominated
during the 1970s, the CPP was the more prominent concern in the
1980s. The nature of the threats is also distinct: the communists
sought to overthrow the entire political system, whereas Muslim
rebels sought merely to displace the state in the south or to seek
autonomy within it. To the extent that the MNLF has represented a
threat to the nation's territorial integrity, it is similar in nature to an
external threatand that similarity is extended by foreign support for
the Muslim rebels and by Manila's concomitant foreign diplomacy.
Although Jakarta's brokering of the September 2, 1996, peace treaty is
indicative of the Philippines' increasing reliance on regional ties in the
post-Cold War era, growing ethnonationalist and Islamic
consciousness since the collapse of communism could yet contribute
to an unraveling of the agreement. Nor does the gradual disintegration
of the CPP/NPA, any more than the defeat of the Huks before them,
signify a definitive end to the problem of social unrest. There is a very
real danger that complacency over short-term economic growthgrowth
without equitywill lead to a failure of resolve in addressing deep-
seated structural problems; that danger is all the greater because the
constant pressure of a powerful, organized left led by the CPP has
begun to wane. This situation could result in another cycle of violent
social unrest in the future.

20

Indeed, the country's insurgent movements are primarily symptoms of

insecurity rather than causes in themselves. Those who have joined
them have often done so to seek the security that the state has failed to
provide: participation represents an attempt at individual or
community "self-help" in a situation of internal social anarchy. By
addressing the symptom rather than the cause, by contributing to the
anarchy, counterinsurgency policy has long aggravated the problem of
insecurity. The fundamental questions of referent and scope (who and
what is to be secured), which determine approaches to national
security (the question of how), are themselves dependent in turn on
identification of the threat itself: what is to be secured against? In a
classic case of quis custodiet ipsos custodes, the Philippine military,
which Marcos had expanded to "save the republic," first became a
threat to civil society and then, during the Aquino period, undermined
the very state it was pledged to defend. Today, the same military is no
match for its potential rivals in an increasingly dangerous South China
Sea.

 Page 577
The authoritarian experience has strongly conditioned conceptions of
security in the Philippines. The result was a much weakened executive
during the Aquino period just as the traditional oligarchy was
resurgent and the military was at the peak of its influenceforces that
could be counterbalanced only by an invigorated civil society.
Aquino's legacy is the reestablishment of the prerequisite framework
of formal liberties. However, the task of further empowering the
Filipino people was left to her successors and the expanding
community of NGOs and people's organizations. That community had
its origins in resistance to the Marcos regime, however, and remains
mistrustful of a "strong" state. Their mistrust can only be overcome
when the state becomes sufficiently representative of, and accountable
to, civil society and gives the people as much stake in state security as
their rulers have.
For a long time, the most powerful stakeholder in the security of the
Philippine state has been its American patron. When the state became
endangered by Marcos's predations, the security goal of the U.S. State
Department shifted from the defense of his administration to the
preservation of an anticommunist regime. Marcos was abandoned and
the United States joined his opponents in the uneasy coalition under
Cory Aquino. Long-term American patronage, however, has left the
AFP as underdeveloped as the state it is charged with defendinga
condition that has suddenly become obvious with the withdrawal of
the U.S. bases from the country. In the post-Cold War environment
the Ramos government is seeking external security through improved
regional ties, a project closely linked to the president's vision for
economic development, "Philippines 2000." The southern Philippines,
long considered a vulnerable "back door" to Muslim subversion, is
now reconceptualized as a "front door" to trade with ASEAN. The
Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area
(BIMP-EAGA), centered on Mindanao, is one of several trade
polygons in the emerging AFTA (Ramos 1995). The reawakening of
these regional trading links, long overshadowed by bilateral trade
between metropole and colonial entrepôt, marks the beginning of a
new postcolonial era in Southeast Asia. Since the days of the galleon
trade, the Philippines' primary ties with the outside world have
extended eastward to the American continent, and the country has
often been regarded as peripheral to Southeast Asia. Today the
Philippines increasingly seeks investment from, as well as trade with,
its immediate Asian neighbors. It is promoting regional economic
cooperation too, and is participating more fully in important regional
organizations that are becoming central to local conceptions of
security. The transformation of Subic Bay from American naval base
to free trade zone and site of the November

 Page 578
1996 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit is symbolic
of that shift.
Another challenge to the democratic order is the traditional oligarchy.
Although Ramos and his advisers recognize the obstacle that class
presents to the goals of successful development and long-term
security, their efforts to overcome it are constrained by the
authoritarian experience. If anything is to be learned from changing
conceptions of security in the Philippines over the past decades, it is
that the state should join forces with society in pursuit of security
goals, rather than taking up arms against its own people.

 Page 579

18
Singapore
Realist Cum Trading State
Narayanan Ganesan
The meek may not have inherited the earth, but neither have the strong.
Small animals survive and thrive in the jungles, as do small states in the
international order. The price of their survival is eternal vigilance.
HSIEN LOONG LEE, 1984
No economy can afford to ignore the rest of the world, but for Singapore
trade is the essence of our existence. Our imports and exports amount to
three times the value of our GDP. Two thirds of our output of goods and
services go to meet external demand. No other economy in the world is as
open as ours. Few others therefore watch developments in the world trading
system with as close concern and as much alarm.
HSIEN LOONG LEE, 1986

Singapore's conception of security is very much in the realist tradition.

Its primary security concern is its political and economic survival in
an uncertain and hostile environment. Self-help (through the
development of national means) and power balancing (by engaging
the major powers in Southeast Asia) are critical elements in
Singapore's strategy to preserve and enhance its security. This realist
behavior issues from Singapore's many vulnerabilitiesits tiny physical
size, its consequent lack of strategic depth and lack of natural
resources, its location in a Malay world that until recently was hostile
to it, its recent construction as a stateand the manner in which it
became independent. Its realist behavior, however, is increasingly
tempered by the growing economic


 Page 580
interdependence and stability that characterize Southeast Asia.
Singapore, together with its neighboring countries, has made a
concerted and quite successful effort to render the immediate
environment more benign through the development of regional norms
and institutions as well as through subregional and regional economic
cooperation. But regional institutions and growing economic
interdependence have not, at least thus far, altered the importance of
national self-help. Indeed, self-help continues to be at the core of
Singapore's security thinking and behavior.
Singapore's conception of security has an internal dimension as well.
Internal security relates to national unity, regime survival, and
political stability. The concern with national unity stems from
Singapore's short history as a separate political entity, as well as its
multiethnic character. More than many other countries, Singapore, it
is argued, cannot take its status as a nation-state for granted. Further,
Singapore's leaders currently argue that the one-party system is the
only viable system for Singapore. Communalism and communism
have been cited as key threats to internal security. Communalism
refers to ethnic chauvinism, which is perceived as having the potential
to disrupt Singapore's interracial harmony. The communist threat to
the state has taken the form of challenges to the dominant party
system as well as labor and student unrest coordinated through front
organizations for the outlawed Communist Party of Malaya. Because
internal and international security are viewed as interconnected,
Singapore's approach to security, it is argued, must be "total." That is,
it must encompass the internal and international levels and must
embrace political, economic, military, and psychological dimensions:
In the contemporary world, warfare is seldom waged on the military front
alone. The Vietnam War is a classic example of how even a superpower
like the U.S. may be forced to swallow humble pie because of waning
public support and a weakening military will. Part of Singapore's
 stratagem for security is embodied in deterrence through Total Defense.
The latter is predicated on the assumption that an adversary always wages
other forms of warfare in addition to military actions, be it political, social,
economic or psychological. In the face of total war, total defense is
therefore the logical answer. (Bey 1994: 3)

Conflation of Nation-State, Regime, and Government

The security discourse in Singapore is monopolized by a small group
of political leaders and the bureaucratic elite. Their definition of
national security is generally not contested. With only 2 opposition
members out of a total of 83 members of parliament in the unicameral
legislature, there is little challenge to the People's Action Party (PAP)
government

 Page 581
in parliament. Moreover, opposition parties have, at least until now,
dealt with bread-and-butter issues to broaden their support base rather
than esoteric matters like security. In any event, internal and external
security issues are generally taboo subjects in parliament and are often
cloaked by a veil of secrecy.
The government's conception of security is not contested by society at
large or by any special interest groups. The vigor with which the PAP
has pursued the goal of internal cohesiveness and its virtual monopoly
over government and all its enforcement agencies leaves little
enthusiasm for political participation. In this regard, the PAP's push
for a depoliticized citizenry has yielded tangible benefits. Moreover,
the spontaneous emergence of a civic culture with its attendant
interest associations and pressure groupsassociated with liberal
democracyhas not occurred in Singapore. Indeed, it has even been
argued that the Singapore experience nullifies the generally accepted
proposition that the middle classes in developing countries are the
engine for participatory democracy (Brown and Jones 1994).
Against this general backdrop, only a few groups have attempted to
negotiate with the government to secure greater public space as
opposed to a totally corporatized society (Rodan 1993). The first and
perhaps most serious attempt to negotiate with the government came
from the local Malay community. A segment within the community,
somewhat displeased over the essentially PAP-controlled Council for
the Development of the Singapore Muslim Community (MENDAKI)
for communal self-help, inaugurated the Association of Muslim
Professionals (AMP) in 1990. Although the government's initial
response was somewhat ambiguous, it subsequently welcomed the
move and noted that it was the equivalent of MENDAKI Swasta
(private-sector MENDAKI). As a gesture of support, the PAP
government offered the AMP a dollar-for-dollar matching grant of up
to a million dollars. The condition for the grant was that the AMP
work closely with MENDAKI and promote Malay unity. AMP's
work closely with MENDAKI and promote Malay unity. AMP's
relative independence from the government was short-lived, however,
for leadership squabbles led to the ouster of its chairman in 1994.

1 The current chairman, who works for a major local newspaper, has
generally had a more conciliatory approach toward MENDAKI, and
the two groups now coexist with greater accommodation.

The second attempt to negotiate with the government was led by the
Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE), a vocal
women's rights group that has long argued for gender equality in
Singapore. The organization has made significant contributions by
counseling and supporting local women subjected to criminal and

 Page 582
domestic violence. It has also lobbied for equal provisions in medical
coverage for men and women, prodding the public sector to take the
lead.

2 The PAP governmentwhich has long been charged with paternalism,

and sometimes with chauvinismsimply refused to yield to the pressure
and stated plainly that because Asian males were expected to lead the
family, the benefits they derived from gainful employment should
reflect that basic value. The final attempt to negotiate with the
government was articulated by the Nature Society of Singapore
(NSS). The society, armed with 25,000 signatures, lobbied the
government to reconsider development plans for an area close to the
Pierce Reservoir in 1993. Because the area was a bird sanctuary, the
NSS argued there was a need to protect it. The government dismissed
the petition, however, arguing that development plans for humans had
to take priority over birds in land-scarce Singapore. The Ministry for
National Development subsequently challenged the NSS to offer
alternative plans for future housing needs.

Such efforts to negotiate with the government should be viewed as

attempts to create space for the emergence of public discourse on a
number of issuesperhaps a civic culture of sorts in the makingrather
than as political contestation. These illustrations clearly suggest that
the policies of the state, especially those relating to security, are
firmly in place and that challenges to state policies are unlikely to
yield substantive change. Given the general acceptance in Singapore
that security is the preserve of the state, the Singapore government has
generally had a free hand in matters of security.
Among the governing elite the referent of security is incontrovertibly
the city-state of Singapore. But increasingly the city-state is fused
with the present political system, the government, and the PAP.
Through constant references to the narrow range of policy options
available and to the time and resources wasted by competitive politics,
the PAP government has sent clear signals to the electorate that a
dominant party system best suits Singapore's political and economic
interests. In light of its own successful track record in maintaining
social cohesiveness and promoting economic development, the
obvious implication is that the PAP government best serves the
interest of Singapore. More important, there has been a concerted
attempt to make the state virtually indistinguishable from the
government. Given the PAP's overwhelming control of the executive
and legislative branches of government and the extensive links and
personal relationships between the PAP and the bureaucracy, such a
fusion is tantamount to narrowing the definition of the state, and by
extension its interests, to those of the PAP as a political party.
Consequently, conceptions of national security

 Page 583
can conveniently take into account the interests of the PAP. This
collapsing of referents poses little problem in Southeast Asia, because
Singapore's immediate neighbors (Malaysia and Indonesia) have
dominant political parties and employ similar strategies. The
importance of strong government and the desirability of achieving
regional stability through national resilience have become part of the
conventional wisdom in the region. And the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (ASEAN), which now embraces nine and will soon
include all ten Southeast Asian countries, has a deeply cherished
policy of noninterference in the domestic politics of member states.
The national identity of Singapore, however, is problematic. Despite
Singapore's overwhelmingly Chinese population, the government
avoided propounding an ethnic identity for many years, embracing
instead the notion of "ethnic neutrality." There were very good
reasons, both external and domestic, for this policy. As the sole
"Chinese" state in Southeast Asia, Singapore has long been viewed
with suspicion by its Malay neighbors. Any attempt to equate
Singaporean identity with Chinese ethnicity would also be vigorously
resisted by the almost one-quarter of the country's citizens who belong
to other ethnic groups. While pursuing a policy of ethnic neutrality,
however, the government, has encouraged Chinese cultural identity
insofar as it supports political and societal structures and facilitates
economic activity and investment in East Asia. The use of Mandarin
has been officially encouraged among Chinese since 1979 and
continues to be promoted through annual campaigns. But whenever
such an identity has the potential to disrupt Singapore's multiethnic
character or to provoke Malay nationalist sentiment in the region, it is
suppressed. Singapore's multiethnic political parties contrast
dramatically with Malaysia's communal groupings; the PAP
represents itself as transcending not only race but also class, and thus
as the embodiment of the nation's collective corporate interests.
It is those collective interests that lie at the core of Singaporean
national identityan identity that has been skillfully constructed by
leading PAP politicians and administrators and apparently internalized
by much of the population. This identity is in turn routinely
reproduced as "common sense" in everyday discourse and practices
(Chua 1995). Although PAP leaders present this manufactured
identity as "pragmatic" and nonideological, much effort has been
invested in the creation and continuous reshaping of what amounts, in
fact, to a national ideology. Its starting point is the idea of "survival"
in a hostile environment; the means to that survival is economic
growth. Growth necessitates a strictly meritocratic state that ensures
stability by suppressing primordial ethnic

 Page 584
and class rivalriesthat is, by transforming politics into administration.
By contrasting its own rational management of the collective good
and its effective delivery of material prosperity with the selfish
squabbling of sectoral or racial interests, the PAP state equates itself,
and the values it propagates, with Singaporean identity.
In the early years of industrialization, individualism was upheld as a
Singaporean virtue in order to promote entrepreneurial values, but
with growing consumerism in the early 1980s came a shift in
emphasis to ''moral education" through religion. Great weight was
placed on Confucianism, not only as an explanation for the economic
success of Singapore and its East Asian neighbors but also as a means
of avoiding the apparent cultural decadence and perceived decline of
the West. A national identity based on Confucian values failed to
distinguish Singapore from its neighbors, however, and conflicted
with the multicultural imperative. Since the late 1980s, therefore,
Confucian ethics have given way to a reframed discourse of "shared"
Asian values and communitarianism explicitly conceived as a
"national ideology." A government white paper on "Shared Values,"
tabled in 1991, stated that to institutionalize a national ideology was to
"evolve and anchor a Singaporean identity, incorporating the relevant
parts of our varied cultural heritages, and the attitudes and values
which have helped us to survive and succeed as a nation." Most
important among these are "placing society above the self, upholding
the family as the basic building block of society, resolving major
issues through consensus instead of contentions, and stressing racial
and religious tolerance and harmony." Although "shared values" carry
no legally binding status, they do enable the PAP, through its control
over the state's ideological apparatus, to propagate the conflation of
regime, government, and national identity in Singapore.
Core Values
Territorial sovereignty, domestic political order, and sustained high
economic growth are the three core values that Singapore's decision
makers seek to protect under the label of security. Of the three,
territorial sovereignty is clearly an international security concern.
Although domestic political order is an internal concern, it is
rationalized on the basis of international security (and is linked to the
legitimation of the government although for obvious reasons it is not
articulated as such). Economic growth is an international concern, but
it too can serve a domestic legitimation function.

 Page 585
Territorial Sovereignty
Singapore's concern with territorial sovereignty is rooted in historical
and geopolitical considerations. The most important such
consideration is the manner in which independence was unexpectedly
thrust upon the city-state (Lau 1969; Milne 1966; Ganesan 1991).
Singapore, which was granted home rule by the British colonial
authorities in 1959, initially achieved its independence as part of the
Malaysian Federation in September 1963. Tensions at the leadership
and popular levels, ethnoreligious considerations, and electoral
challenges led to its bitter separation from the federation in 1965.
Although Singapore was ejected from Malaysia, many political
leaders in Malaysia did not accept Singapore as a sovereign state.
There was much residual hostility.
Tensions between Malaysia and Singapore continued well beyond
political separation. Especially contentious were the dissolution of
joint-stock companies like Malaysia-Singapore Airlines, the
introduction of a new currency for Singapore, and the establishment
of an indigenous defense force, the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF), in
1967. Singapore's postindependence relations with Indonesia, too,
were turbulent. Indonesia, under the political leadership of President
Sukarno, embarked on a policy of military confrontation against the
Malaysian Federation from 1963 to 1966 (Leifer 1983a; Hindley
1964; Mackie 1974). Whereas most of the military skirmishes
occurred in the East Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak,
Singapore too was subjected to Indonesian hostilities. Following the
trial and hanging in Singapore of two Indonesian marines in 1968 for
detonating a bomb that led to the loss of civilian lives, relations
between Indonesia and Singapore became even more tense. Only after
the 1973 visit of Singapore's prime minister Lee Kuan Yew to
Indonesia did the tensions ease (Khoon Choy Lee 1993).
The collective experiences of the PAP government in the immediate
postindependence period led to a sharp sense of vulnerability
underscoring Singapore's preoccupation with survival, often cynically
referred to as a siege mentality. The PAP government was acutely
aware of the dim prospects of eking out an independent future without
an adjacent hinterland. It impressed upon the Singapore population
that, given the changed circumstances, survival was truly an issue.
Accordingly, "survival was adopted as a one-word political slogan as
well as a main theme underlying all analyses of problems and
statement of policies and intent" (Chan 1971: 48).
The PAP government's understanding of vulnerability was
exaggerated by historical precedents regarding the viability of city-
states. All precedents pointed toward a union with the city-state's
adjacent hinter-

 Page 586
land to create a wider community. The manner of separation from the
Malaysian Federation, however, made reunion an impossibility.
Hence, with no preparation for independence and no possibility of
remaining a part of the federation, Singapore had to fend for itself.
The outcome was a city-state that did not take its sovereignty for
granted and constantly emphasized survival as the first priority of both
domestic and foreign policy (Buszynski 1985; Rajaratnam 1965,
1988).
The twin themes of survival and vulnerability have always loomed
large in the minds of policy makers. There may be times when both
themes are latent, but they are never forgotten. In articulating
Singapore's foreign policy, especially in international forums such as
the United Nations, politicians and diplomats emphasize the
inviolable nature of sovereignty. Singapore's leaders have gone to
great lengths to point out that violation of a country's territorial
integrity, especially that of a small country by a larger one, is
inexcusable in the conduct of international relations. The reason is
clear: if such violations are condoned in the international arena, there
are no guarantees to Singapore's sovereignty. In other words, the fate
that befell smaller countries elsewhere could, some day, befall
Singapore. It is for this reason that Singapore led ASEAN's attack on
the diplomatic front in the United Nations condemning the
Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia. The Vietnamese action
constituted a flagrant violation of Cambodia's territorial sovereignty, a
precedent that, if left unchecked, had the potential to reorder interstate
relations in Southeast Asia.
Singapore's ex-foreign minister Wong Kan Seng articulated the
sovereignty principle thus: "The vulnerability of a small state is a fact
of life. Singapore's independent existence is today widely recognized.
But to answer our basic security, we can never allow tests to our
sovereignty and internal affairs, even when well intentioned, to go
unchallenged. Even today we have had to occasionally remind other
countries to leave us alone to be ourselves" (Wong 1988: 3). The
sovereignty principle is so deeply cherished that Singapore diplomats
are known to disagree with the closest of allies in international
forums. An example is the invasion of Grenada by the United States,
which Singapore condemned in the U.N. General Assembly, even
though Singapore's foreign policy has traditionally been pro-American
and vital economic interests were at stake. The difficulty involved in
managing such a situation is graphically illustrated in the address of
Singapore's permanent representative to the United Nations before the
U.N. Security Council:
Mr. President, it is easy enough to demonstrate our adherence to principle
when to do so is convenient and advantageous and costs us nothing. The
test of a country's adherence to a principle is when it is incon-

 Page 587
venient to do so. I find myself in such a situation today. Barbados,
Jamaica, the U.S., and the members of the O.E.C.S. (Organization of
Eastern Caribbean States) are friends of my country. It is extremely
convenient for me to acquiesce in what they have done or to remain silent.
To do so, however, will, in the long run, undermine the moral and legal
significance of the principles which my country regards as a shield. That is
why we must put our adherence to principle above friendship. That is why
we cannot condone the actions of our friends in Grenada. The stand which
my country has taken in this case is consistent with the stand which we
have taken in other cases where the principle of noninterference in the
internal affairs of states was also violated. (Koh 1987: 10)

In the case of Indonesia's invasion of East Timor in 1975, however,

Singapore's immediate self-interest appears to have won out over
principles of sovereignty, noninterference, and peaceful resolution of
disputes. Although Singapore initially abstained from voting on the
issue at the United Nations, it subsequently supported Indonesia's
position as a fellow member of ASEAN whose "internal affairs" are
not to be "interfered" with.
Domestic Political Order
It is useful at this juncture to note that the concern with survival is not
exclusively international. There is a domestic component that can be
traced to the electoral challenges and the labor unrest that confronted
the PAP in the 1950s and 1960s. Whereas the PAP government's
initial suppression of opposition political parties and organized labor
was inspired by security threats arising from the terms of the sensitive
merger with the Malaysian Federation, the suppression itself would
lead in time to popular disinterest and abandonment of opposition
politics. That disinterest combined with strong economic
performance, an efficient and incorruptible bureaucracy, and a
monopoly on political recruitment, left the PAP unchallenged in its
dominant position throughout the 1970s. Political opposition
reemerged, however, in 1981 when the Worker's Party candidate, J. B.
Jeyaratnam, secured a by-election victory in Anson constituency. In
1984 the number of opposition members in parliament increased to 2;
in 1991, the PAP suffered its worst setback since the 1960s with a loss
of 4 out of 81 seats to the political opposition. Its popular support was
eroding as well. The PAP secured only 62 percent of the total votes
cast in 1991, compared with more than 80 percent in the 1960s.
However, in the most recent election, held in January 1997, the PAP
managed to reverse the trend by obtaining some 65 percent of the
popular vote. It remains to be seen

 Page 588
whether this reversal is sustainable. Additionally, it should be noted
that the PAP's decision to peg upgrading programs for public housing
projects to voter support in individual constituencies has received
mixed responses. Such linkage has been viewed as unethical because
the budget for such programs derives from public coffers. Critics
contend that the linkage is an attempt by the PAP to utilize public
funds to reward its supporters.
The earlier decline in electoral support for the PAP government led to
an emphasis on domestic political order. Domestic order, which is
deemed to be synonymous with political survival, is equated with the
continuation of the one-party system in Singapore. PAP leaders have
gone to great lengths to emphasize that Singapore's political survival
and prosperity are intricately intertwined with the dominant-party
system. Consequently, the present political system is articulated as
being in the national interest and ensuring the political stability of
Singapore.
Domestic political order also relies on internal sociopolitical cohesion.
Because of the multiethnic and multireligious composition of
Singapore's population and the memory of racial riots in 1950 and
1964 (as well as the 1969 race riot in Malaysia), the PAP government
has been acutely concerned with national unity. Together with
communism, communalism was for a long time identified as
Singapore's major internal security threat. Whereas the threat of
communism has ended, communalism remains. The situation is
exacerbated by transnational communal links with Malaysia and
Indonesia and the anti-Chinese attitude prevalent in both these
countries. Ethnic Chinese communities in Malaysia and Indonesia are
in the minority but have done astoundingly well economically,
making them targets for antigovernment and nationalist outbursts.
Overseas Chinese communities have also been viewed as a fifth
column for China. Apprehensions about these minority Chinese
communities also contributed to hostility toward Singapore, viewed as
a Chinese island in a Malay sea.
These considerations caused the PAP government to deal with the
issue of ethnicity rather carefully. Singapore has traditionally
downplayed ethnicity and projected itself as an ethnically neutral
technocratic state. Nonetheless, given the political baggage that
Chinese ethnicity carries with it in maritime Southeast Asia,
Singapore's very existence invites scrutiny from its neighbors that has
implications for its security.
Economic Growth and Development
The final core value, economic growth and development, is anchored
in another domestic constraint: the absence of natural resources.
Unlike its neighbors, Singapore is totally bereft of natural resources
save

 Page 589
for its strategic location at the heart of international air traffic and
shipping lanes. Unable to provide for even its own basic needs such as
food and water, Singapore is heavily reliant on its neighbors,
particularly Malaysia, as well as on participation in the international
economy for economic survival. To diversify its sole reliance on
Malaysia for potable water, the Singapore government concluded a
memorandum of understanding with Indonesia to purchase water from
Bintan Island in Riau province at a 40 percent premium in cost over
the Malaysian price of treated water. Its lack of natural resources, its
small market, and its potentially hostile neighbors also imply that
Singapore's economic survival depends on its effective participation
in regional and global economic arrangements. This situation has led
the country to depend heavily on foreign markets, investments, and
labor.

3 Singapore's leaders are quick to point out the vulnerabilities

associated with its heavy reliance on external markets:

As a country which is highly dependent on international trade, it is of the

utmost importance to be aware of the trends and developments taking
place in the global economy. The growth of protectionist trends in the
major Western markets, the tendency to abandon free trade principles and
the refusal of some countries to open their markets to foreign imports are
some of these trends and developments which can adversely affect
Singapore's growth and therefore need to be closely monitored. Economic
diplomacy is diplomacy in pursuit of our economic interests, and has been
used to counter the problems caused by these trends and developments.
(Chan 1987: 4-5)
Economic growth and development are central, too, to the
legitimation of the PAP government. In the context of the economic
and political crises of the late 1950s and early 1960s, the PAP
government cut its links with the radical populist mass base that
helped bring it to power and crush the opposition. These measures
could be made acceptable only by the promise of performance, which
in turn required efficient administration. In place of a mass base, Lee
Kuan Yew forged an alliance with the civil service, whose technocrats
"had little sympathy for political conflict and viewed the bargaining
and competition of the earlier democratic process as irrelevant
distractions, potentially destabilizing for the process of economic
growth" (Khong 1995: 112). By presenting itself as the embodiment
of society's common interests but as independent of its conflicting
factions, the government is able to justify the exclusion of popular
participation in policy making. But that justification is contingent on
the continued success of government policy. Should economic growth
falter, demands for greater participation will multiply.
In sum, then, territoriality and sovereignty are clearly the most im-

 Page 590
portant core values for Singapore. But given Singapore's lack of
resources and its extensive reliance on international trade, economic
security is critical to the state's survival as well. Historically
Singapore's international vulnerability legitimated the PAP's
monopoly on political power. Consequently, a strong government
with virtually no electoral challenges was projected as a necessary
condition for achieving external security. With time, however, the
nature of the linkage has become blurred, and the survival of the
current dominant-party system is now promoted as a necessary
condition for achieving international security. In other words, whereas
external security considerations were once deployed to justify the
political system, the PAP government now projects internal political
survival as a necessary condition for external security.
With regard to scope, Singapore's security policy initially emphasized
international security. That focus was born out of the state's
vulnerability in the immediate postindependence period, particularly
due to the strained relations with Malaysia and Indonesia. The
implementation of an externally oriented security policy, however,
required internal cohesion. Consequently, the scope of security was
broadened to include the domestic level. The links between the
various levels and dimensions are far from coincidental. Rather,
through a policy of state corporatism, the various domains have been
brought together. The PAP government, with its emphasis on
enlightened leadership, brings to bear its collective weight to ensure
that the overarching goal of preserving internal and external security
is attained. Such unity of direction is indeed enviable. Economic
growth nourishes the resources and consequently the instruments of
policy available to the government. The Singapore government, unlike
its counterparts in some countries, is faced with practically no
opposition to its formulation and implementation of policies
pertaining to security matters.
Threats to Core Values
The threats to Singapore's core values combine internal and external
elements. Threats to territoriality clearly derive from the immediate
regional environment in maritime Southeast Asia. Until the end of the
Cold War and up to the time of the Vietnamese troop withdrawal from
Cambodia in 1989, Singapore also perceived an ideological threat
from communism. Communism, however, is no longer viewed as a
serious concern. The most recent concerns with ideological threats
derive from values broadly associated with Western liberal democracy
such as human rights, press freedom, and political contestation. Such
values are viewed as challenges to the PAP government's
sociopolitical hegemony. Threats

 Page 591
to sustained economic growth arise from challenges to the
international trading regime and to Singapore's economic
competitiveness.
Geopolitical Threats
Although much of the trauma of the postindependence period has
been overcome, the concern with survival is kept alive by a number of
factors. Foremost among them is the structural condition arising from
Singapore's geographic proximity to its immediate neighbors,
Malaysia and Indonesia, and the huge disparity between its
endowments and theirs. Singapore's primary security concern is firmly
anchored in the Malay Archipelago (Alagappa 1991a). Within this
security complex, Indonesia is the dominant power and Malaysia the
medium power. The microstates of Singapore and Brunei have
traditionally been concerned with threats from their larger neighbors.
The Indonesian confrontation and the bitter separation from the
Malaysian Federation serve as stark historical reminders for
Singapore. The imperatives of geography and history are extremely
compelling for Singapore's policy formulators, even though the first-
generation political leadership that experienced the trauma of strained
external relations has, for the most part, retired from political office.
The acrimonious row between Malaysia and Singapore in March 1997
over Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew's statement in an affidavit that
the Malaysian state of Johor was "notorious for shootings, muggings
and carjackings" demonstrates that although the two countries have
extensive and mutually beneficial linkages, there are still latent
undercurrents of tension that can be expected to surface from time to
time.
Further, Singapore's predominantly ethnic Chinese population (78
percent) sets it apart from its regional neighbors. Chinese ethnicity in
the Malay Archipelago has a long history of association with
communist insurgencies and economic domination. Political elites in
Malaysia and especially Indonesia have viewed the ethnic Chinese
communities as a security concern at various times (Von Vorys 1976;
Suryadinata 1985, 1990). Their astounding economic success has also
attracted the envy of indigenous majority populations. Although the
establishment of mutually beneficial links between successful Chinese
businessmen and the political establishment and enforcement agencies
have deflected some of the criticisms, both Malay and Indonesian
nationalism have a long history of being expressed in anti-Chinese
terms.
Despite its neighbors' identification of ethnic Chinese with "the
communist threat," Singapore was itself fearful of communist
expansion for many years, particularly with regard to the military
capabilities of Vietnam, China, and the Soviet Union. Singapore was a
staunch

 Page 592
supporter of American "containment" policy in the Indochinese
peninsula and was shaken by the North Vietnamese victory of 1975,
which led to the establishment for the first time of a forward Soviet
naval base in the region at Cam Ranh Bay. The Soviets' enhanced
ability to project naval power into the South China Sea, which meant
the potential to interdict the vital shipping lanes upon which
Singaporean trade and prosperity depend, represented a significant
geostrategic setback. That setback was closely followed by the
Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, seen by many as a step toward the
formation of a Soviet-aligned "Indochinese federation." Singapore
accordingly took the lead in the protracted war of diplomatic attrition
over Cambodia between ASEAN and Vietnam. The collapse of the
Soviet bloc after 1989 has replaced old fears with new uncertainties:
Will the United States continue to play a significant military role in
the region? What are China's political and territorial ambitions now
that it is freed from the Soviet threat and experiencing rapid economic
growth? And how will Indonesia's emergence as a newly
industrializing power affect the balance of forces in Southeast Asia?
The opportunities and uncertainties that will be created by China's
development in the next decade or two are especially important and
warrant discussion. Linkages with China were problematic for
Singapore in the past because of the PAP government's promotion of
multiethnicity domestically and because of the perceived threat
deriving from Chinese support for the outlawed Communist Party of
Malaya. Malaysian and Indonesian anxieties and suspicions regarding
Chinese ethnicity were an added consideration. As a result, Singapore
was the last country in Southeast Asia to establish formal diplomatic
ties with China, doing so in November 1990.
Yet, ironically, many observers have noted Singapore's recent
enthusiasm for cultural identification with East Asia and its large
economic portfolio in China. Although future regional stability is
clearly predicated on China's behavior on a number of issues,
particularly those involving overlapping territorial claims with
Singapore's ASEAN neighbors, Singapore has no leverage whatsoever
with respect to how China develops. In the event that China attempts
regional hegemony, Singapore will be forced to demonstrate solidarity
with ASEAN and the United States to reaffirm its location in
Southeast Asia as well as to continue its security linkages with the
United States.
Ideological Threats
Singapore was concerned with the ideological threat posed by
revolutionary communism in the 1960s and the 1970s. The communist

 Page 593
threat was critical in the 1960s when front organizations of the CPM
infiltrated the labor movement and the Chinese high schools in
Singapore. Through a two-pronged policy of legislation and
suppression, coupled with pursuit of the domestic policy goal of
providing economic and social security, the government was able to
diminish the allure of communism as an alternative ideology. By the
1980s, communist ideology had become much less attractive. In 1989
the CPM disbanded, ending one of Singapore's most serious security
threats.
The government has in recent years been concerned about the
ideological threat posed by Western "universal" values. In the
government's eyes, those values threaten to displace traditional Asian
values like filial piety and ethnic consciousnessvalues that the
government insists have helped Singapore to achieve social stability
and economic prosperity. In an effort to counter this so-called threat,
as well as to bolster its domestic and international position, the
government has promoted Asian (Confucian) values and emphasized
the role of ethnicity in the fulfillment of social obligations. This
policy, which is sometimes incongruent with the ethnic neutrality
policy, is carefully managed so that it does not threaten national
identity and cohesiveness, which are critical to the preservation of
national unity in the multiethnic state.
Apart from the threat to ethnic consciousness and filial piety,
Singapore has expressed alarm over Western advocacy of democracy,
press freedom, and human rights, as well as the link between labor
issues and free trade. The Western dislike for dominant-party systems,
which are often interpreted as gravitation toward totalitarianism and
fascism, threatens the legitimacy of the PAP government.
Consequently, broad-based political participation is acknowledged as
a cardinal feature of Singapore's democracy but political contestation
is frowned upon. Press freedom is problematic to the extent that it
challenges the government's corporate monopoly over all the news
and print media through the Straits Times Press Holdings and the
Television Corporation of Singapore. Notwithstanding recent efforts
to liberalize the media and telecommunications industry, the
government retains firm control through statutory authority. Liberal
conceptions of human rights challenge the legitimacy of the Internal
Security Act, which allows for detention without triala legacy of the
Malayan Emergency (1948-60) that facilitated the suppression of the
CPM. In recent times, the act has been used against secret societies
and drug traffickers. Even though labor issues do not present a
significant threat in Singapore, the government has lent support to
countries seeking to decouple the issues of international trade and
domestic labor policy. It should also be noted that the

 Page 594
free association of labor is incompatible with the PAP-managed
monopolistic organization embodied in the National Trades Union
Congress (NTUC).
Communalism
Communalism, another major internal security concern, relates to the
politicization and mobilization of ethnic communities. Given
Singapore's multiracial makeup and its relatively short tenure of 30
years as an independent state, the problems associated with the
politicization of ethnicity are very real. The problem is compounded
by the anxieties in Malaysia and Indonesia over their domestic
Chinese communities. Two episodes in Singapore's recent political
history demonstrate the threat of ethnic chauvinism. The first of these,
the Maria Hertogh riots, occurred in 1950. In that instance, the Malay
foster parents of a Dutch girl abandoned during World War II
contested the return of the girl, Maria, to her natural parents after the
war. The English judge presiding over the case sent Maria to a
Christian convent while the case was being heard in court. The Malay
press, which published photographs of Maria kneeling before the
Virgin Mary, stoked Malay/Muslim religious sentimentleading to the
outbreak of riots that left 18 dead and 173 injured in two days.
The second incident, referred to as the Prophet Muhammad Birthday
Riots, occurred in 1964 when Malays and Chinese fought street
battles against each other in the predominantly Malay area of Geylang
following a religious procession held to honor the prophet.
Communalist Malay agitators as well as Chinese secret societies
exacerbated the conflict, which resulted in 33 deaths and more than
600 injuries. Because of the fusion of Malay ethnic identity with
religion, religiously inspired conflicts often deteriorate into communal
clashes. Consequently, the Singapore government has been especially
diligent in its efforts to maintain interethnic and interreligious
harmony.
Economic Threats
For Singapore, economic threats are as significant as political threats.
Their significance is due to Singapore's vulnerabilities. As noted
earlier, Singapore has no natural resources, its domestic food
production is minimal, and it relies on Malaysia and Indonesia for
potable water. Further, the total revenue derived from trade-related
activities is three times the value of domestically generated revenue.
Given such heavy reliance on international arrangements for both its
survival and prosper-

 Page 595
ity, any disruption to a regular flow of water, food, and trade would
constitute an economic threat. It is for this reason that Singapore is
especially anxious to preserve security and maintain friendly ties with
Indonesia and Malaysia, the source of most of the food and water
consumed in Singapore.
Disruptions to domestic production and economic challenges from the
regional environment are also seen as threats. During the process of
economic restructuring undertaken following the 1985 recession, the
Singapore government clearly committed itself to deepening its
manufacturing base. This was to be done in relation to specific sectors
or niches that involved a high value-added component. Consequently,
the microelectronics industry was targeted for its optimal use of land
and technology in creating value-added gains. In more recent times,
the silicon wafer fabrication industry has been targeted as a niche
market. Any regional development that challenges Singapore's
preeminent status in sector-specific industries and its overall
competitiveness in high-end manufacturing is viewed as a threat.
Challenges to the current global trading arrangementswhich can take a
variety of forms from the abrogation of preferential tariffs to
economic protectionismare also viewed as a threat. As in the other
newly industrialized countries, the political leadership in Singapore is
acutely aware that domestic prosperity is largely a function of the
liberal international trading system. As such, the long-stalled GATT
talks caused disquiet in Singapore. Singapore's strong lobby to host
the World Trade Organization's inaugural meeting in 1996, apart from
generating local revenue, was also meant to demonstrate to the
international community the importance of international trading
regimes to the country.
Nexus of Internal and External Threats
Two of Singapore's external security threats are directly linked to
domestic security concerns. International threats from Malaysia and
Indonesia, with an overlay of ethnic and religious sensitivities,
aggravate the domestic concern over communalism. Because the
majority Malayo-Indonesian/Muslim community is the minority
community in Singapore, accounting for some 15 percent of
Singapore's population, there is a tendency for ethnoreligious
developments in Malaysia and Indonesia to have a spillover effect on
Singapore. The external threat posed by economic protectionism can
also undermine domestic security if it leads to lower levels of growth
and employmentundermining the legitimacy of a government that
increasingly relies on performance criteria rather

 Page 596
than ideology. Domestic insecurity is seen as providing fertile ground
for external interference, particularly in situations like a breakdown in
intercommunal relations. According to Kuan Yew Lee:
The most straightforward way to destabilize Singapore is to foment racial
and religious discord. In a fragile, vulnerable multi-racial society, we can
never complacently assume that a free-for-all in the marketplace of ideas
will magically lead to truth and enlightenment. More than once in
Singapore's experience it has led to riots and mayhem....Because the
Singapore government has been unwavering in pursuing multi-racial
policies, and firm in taking action against chauvinist agitators, since 1969
all the races have lived together in peace and harmony. But that does not
mean that we can now afford to ignore racial sensitivities. In race we must
come up against deep, atavistic human instincts which will take
generations to overcome. Racial emotions can still be whipped up and
passions inflamed by irresponsible rabble rousing. Once blood has been
shed, many years of nation building and patient strengthening of interracial
trust and understanding will come to naught. (Lee Kuan Yew 1988:10-11)

For the Singapore government, domestic security is a vital

precondition for the achievement of external security. Consequently,
challenges to domestic security have traditionally been dealt with
rather harshly. National unity and domestic order are perceived to be
threatened, not only by communalism, but by class formation and
labor unrest as well. Class formation has the potential to rupture social
cohesion and threaten the broad-based support of the PAP
government; labor unrest has the potential to disrupt domestic
economic production and challenge the government's monopolistic
labor organizations.
The relationship between internal and external security is complex.
From 1965 to 1967 a high level of external insecurity during
Singapore's struggle for survival legitimated the PAP's aggressive
policies to restore domestic calm. In this case a negative external
security environment conferred positive benefits for the management
of internal security. Similarly, the successful deflection of external
security threats allows for optimal deployment of resources to ensure
domestic security. Hence the manner in which a stable or unstable
security environment is used to enhance internal security is a function
of leadership rather than circumstance.
Thus, despite the interactive nature of the internal and external
security environments, the PAP government maintains an exclusive
monopoly on the choice of policy instruments to deflect external
threats. Although policy planning deals with both environments
simultaneously, internal security concerns are not allowed to spill over
into the external security environment. Tight controls over the print
and electronic media

 Page 597
allow for this divorce to the extent that the population at large
generally perceives external security concerns as the government's
exclusive realm. Unless there is an urgent need to sensitize the
population to an external threat, public pronouncements on such
matters are carefully controlled.
Approaches to Security
Singapore's approach to its international security has several layers
and embraces both competitive and cooperative policies and
instruments. At the core is a policy of deterrence and defense based on
powerprimarily national power and secondarily that of friends and
allies. Concurrently, efforts are made to resolve disputes through
negotiation as well as to improve the international environment. In
this connection, bilateral dialogue and political and economic
cooperation with Malaysia and Indonesia have a high priority.
Singapore also views multilateral organizationssubregional, regional,
and globalas useful instruments to enhance its security by making the
international environment more benign and promoting economic
growth.
Deterrence and Defense
Singapore relies on a large citizen army of some 250,000 soldiers with
an Israeli doctrine of forward defense to create the strategic depth
necessary for defense. Since 1967 when the Singapore Armed Forces
was first formed, Israeli military doctrine, military organization, and
training procedures have had a definitive impact on Singapore's policy
planners. The Israeli connection is less obtrusive now, and Singapore
prefers to project the Swiss conception of a citizen army because the
Israeli doctrine presupposes a hostile environment and because the
predominantly Islamic neighboring countries of Malaysia and
Indonesia have yet to reach diplomatic accommodation with Zionism
and its physical expression in Israel. It is no secret that Singapore's
sophisticated weapons systems are second to none in Southeast Asia
(Acharya 1994). But the army's high profile and its sophisticated
weapon acquisitions are meant to serve as a deterrent. War is a policy
option only when all diplomatic avenues have been exhausted:
Contrary to the image that some people have, the role of the Singapore
Armed Forces is not just to fight and win wars, but to preserve the peace.
''To fight and win all your battles is not supreme excellence" so Sun Tzu
told us some 2,500 years ago. "Supreme excellence consists in achieving
your objectives without fighting." The SAF must strive for this supreme
excellence because Mindef's mission is to preserve Singapore's peace and
security without fighting, through deterrence and

 Page 598
diplomacy. However, should deterrence and diplomacy fail, we must win
all our battles, and secure a swift and decisive victory over our aggressors.
Deterrence and a swift victory both require a fighting fit armed force
operationally ready at all times. (Yeo 1994: 1)
An effective deterrent must be a credible one. In the unlikely event
that the military option is utilized, the doctrine of deterrence requires
the ability to deliver a swift and decisive victory. To this end,
Singapore's military strategy of forward defense has undergone some
doctrinal changes. In the 1970s and 1980s, the defense establishment
used the metaphor of "poison shrimp" to describe Singapore's
strategy: a predator fish would be subjected to a bad stomachache if it
ate the shrimp. More recently, in the 1990s, the doctrine is one of
surviving and winning a war. In other words, whereas military
planners were once content with the prospect of losing a war and
inflicting costly damage on its opponent, the new doctrine emphasizes
a "swift and decisive" victory for Singapore.
The deterrence strategy of the SAF, though substantive, is subjected to
budgetary constraints and the lack of training space in Singapore.
Defense expenditure in Singapore is currently capped at 6 percent of
gross domestic product (approximately 28 percent of total government
expenditure for fiscal year 1995). To compensate for shortages in
training space, the SAF uses training facilities in a number of friendly
countries, including Indonesia, Thailand, and Brunei in Southeast
Asia. The most recent such agreement was made with Australia for
the location of ten A-4 Skyhawks in Amberley, Queensland. Another
serious problem is manpower: the number of males reaching the age
of eligibility for national service has declined substantially from a
peak of 22,000 to about 18,000 annually. The Singapore government
has sought to compensate for these limitations in manpower with
technology and has also engaged in balancing through alliances and
alignments.
Alliances and Alignments
After achieving political independence in 1965, Singapore continued
to be a member of the Anglo-Malayan Defense Agreement (AMDA)
(Chin 1974), a legacy of negotiated independence from Britain. The
alliance was meant to ward off joint external threats to Malaysia and
Singapore and was useful in countering the Indonesian confrontation.
With the phasing out of AMDA and the British withdrawal from areas
east of the Suez in 1971, a successor organization, the Five Power
Defence Arrangements (FPDA), was born. The FPDA, which also
included Australia and New Zealand, and is still in effect. Although
the FPDA is only a consultative arrangement, it enhances Singapore's

 Page 599
security in several ways: it knits Singapore into the Western security
system, provides for air training arrangements with Malaysia, and
constitutes a basis for developing a defense relationship with
Australia.
Beyond membership in the FPDA, Singapore has increasingly sought
to align itself with the United States. Singapore's almost militant
anticommunist position and its strong diplomatic support for the
United States, particularly during the Vietnam War, allowed for the
evolution of a special bilateral relationship. Senior Minister Lee Kuan
Yew has repeatedly stated that the United States is a benign
superpower that can protect the interests of vulnerable states from the
hegemonic ambitions of extraregional as well as regional powers. The
Singapore government is firm in its belief that without American
intervention in the Indochinese peninsula to prevent the spread of
communism, maritime Southeast Asia would not have had the
breathing space to secure internal cohesion and extensive economic
development in the immediate postindependence period.
Consequently a debt of gratitude of sorts is owed to the United States,
and Singapore has not been hesitant to indicate its willingness to
continue this special relationship.
An American military presence is also in Singapore's national interest.
During the Cold War it counterbalanced Soviet influence; in the future
it can counterbalance the growing assertiveness of China and possibly
Japan. It is also a check against Indonesia and Malaysia. Hence when
it became apparent that the U.S. military would vacate its bases in the
Philippines, Singapore signed a memorandum of understanding in
July 1989 with the United States. Under the terms of the
understanding, which was formalized in November 1990, Singapore
would host the Logistics Command of the U.S. Seventh Fleet (Lim
1992). Together with some 200 personnel and dependents to staff the
command, the United States would deploy four F-16 fighter aircraft in
Singapore on a rotational basis. Apart from embedding American
security interests in Singapore, this arrangement also serves as a
warning to aspiring regional hegemons. And because the Seventh
Fleet performs the vital function of keeping commercial sea-lanes
open between the Indian and Pacific oceans, it is in Singapore's
trading interest.
Singapore's alignment with the United States has not, however, been
immune to the difficulties that accompany any close relationship. In
recent times, a number of issues have been brought to the fore: the
debates over Western versus Asian values, press freedom, human
rights, and political participation, to name a few. Notwithstanding
such seemingly regular hostile exchanges involving topical issues or
values, the security relationship between the two countries is strong
and is likely to endure. Singapore's assessment of the United States as
a benign

 Page 600
power and its attempts to engage it within a regional balance of power
imply a realist approach to the management of security. Indeed,
Singapore's lack of enthusiasm in supporting the ASEAN-sponsored
declaration to make Southeast Asia a Zone of Peace, Freedom, and
Neutrality (ZOPFAN) in 1971 was due primarily to its realist
orientation.
Improving Bilateral Relations
Singapore has sought to nurture extensive bilateral relations with
Malaysia and Indonesia, the two neighboring countries that can
threaten it. Since the early 1980s many contentious issues have been
dealt with at the bilateral level. Such issues include the supply of
potable water to Singapore, overlapping territorial claims, control of
the Flight Information Regent, and arrangements to jointly develop
land parcels owned by the Malayan Railway company. An important
recent development is the decision by Malaysia and Singapore to refer
their overlapping territorial claims to the rocky shoal where
Horsburgh Lighthouse is located to the International Court of Justice
for arbitration. Bilateral channels are important, too, because ASEAN
does not include contentious bilateral issues on its agenda. Quiet
bilateral diplomacy has instead been the instrument of choice. In the
absence of ASEAN-wide multilateral consultations it is perhaps only
natural that bilateral approaches have predominated.
Bilateral links include regular exchanges between politicians and
senior bureaucrats as well as a number of less formal activities
ranging from golf to sports meets. More important, perhaps, are the
regular military exercises that Singapore holds with Malaysia and
Indonesia as part of a series of confidence-building measures
(Acharya 1990). Moreover, senior regional military officers are
regularly invited to attend courses at Singapore's Command and Staff
College at the SAFTI Military Institute.
Although bilateral interaction has increased Singapore's confidence in
its relations with Malaysia and Indonesia, the legacy of separation and
confrontation is difficult to shrug off entirely. The residual brittleness
is evident in the tension between Malaysian and Singaporean leaders
over the "remerger" issue. In June 1996, Singapore's first prime
minister (and current senior minister), Lee Kuan Yew, mentioned the
possibility of Singapore's reabsorption into the Malaysian Federation
if Singapore's independent existence as a state should go awry. Lee's
comment provoked a sustained outcry among the Malaysian political
elite, who felt that his remarks were meant as a warning to
Singaporeans that their future might be dark indeed if the PAP
government were not reelected to power in the forthcoming national
elections. Consequently, Lee's

 Page 601
comments were construed in Malaysia as condemnation of a
Malaysian political system that emphasized communalism instead of
ethnic neutrality. Similarly, in March 1997, shortly after the
conclusion of the Singapore general election, a defeated political
candidate from the Worker's Party, alleging political harassment by
Singapore's PAP government, fled to the Malaysian state of Johor.
Lee Kuan Yew, who challenged the defeated candidate's (Tang Liang
Hong) interpretation of political developments in Singapore, went on
to identify Johor in an affidavit that was subsequently made public as
a place "notorious for shootings, muggings and carjackings." Almost
immediately there was a sustained and publicly orchestrated
outpouring in Malaysia of grievances against Singapore. This
outpouring ranged from scathing criticisms of Lee by UMNO Youth,
whose leader called Lee "uncouth and senile," to widely publicized
demonstrations and mass media reports calling for a review of all
bilateral dealings with Singapore. In fact, it was initially reported that
Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, chairing a cabinet
meeting on March 26 in Prime Minister Mahathir's absence, endorsed
a freeze in bilateral relations with Singapore.
Regional Cooperation
Singapore regards its membership in the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations as a key element of its international security policy. In
the context of Southeast Asia's political history and its division in the
1970s and 1980s into a communist Indochina and a noncommunist
Southeast Asia, Singapore's membership in ASEAN was helpful in
deflecting the communist threat (Van der Kroef 1976). ASEAN's
security policies were aimed at Indochina in general and at Vietnam in
particular (Leifer 1989). Singapore's aggressive and high-profile
foreign policy in ASEAN, particularly against the Vietnamese
occupation of Cambodia, is well documented (Alagappa 1993).
More significant is that ASEAN provides an institutional framework
within which Singapore can manage relations with its two Malay
neighbors. It is conventional wisdom in Southeast Asia that Indonesia
is primus inter pares in ASEAN. Less noticed is the restraining effect
of ASEAN on Jakarta's hegemonic ambitions. Singapore has been
perhaps the greatest beneficiary of ASEAN over the last 30 years.
Further, almost three decades of interaction has led to a fair measure
of ease among member states that allows multilateral problems like
piracy, smuggling, illegal immigrants, and pollution to be addressed
cooperatively. In this regard, multilateral forums like ASEAN have a
strong normative component in institutionalizing cordial relations
among geographically proximate states. This institutional approach is
not antithetical to

 Page 602
Singapore's deterrence strategy; rather, it is meant to perform a
complementary function. Singapore's reliance on ASEAN and on
cordial bilateral relations with Malaysia and Indonesia is vividly
illustrated in a ministerial speech:
The uncertainties underscore the need to forge personal and institutional
links at all levels with the ASEAN countries, building on the foundations
that have already been established. In an uncertain world, ASEAN is the
rock on which we must anchor our national survival and progress.
Malaysia and Indonesia are of special significance to Singapore. The
younger leaders in Singapore have consciously worked towards
maintaining the pragmatic working relationships with their counterparts
enjoyed by older leaders and eventually developing their own close
personal ties based on confidence and trust. (Wong 1988: 6)
In more recent times, especially from the late 1980s onward,
Singapore apparently has attached increasing weight to a cooperative
institutional approach in the pursuit of its security. This approach
emphasizes mutual gain and the observance of principles and norms in
the conduct of international relations. The change is no doubt a
function of the demise of the Cold War as well as the strengthening of
ties with regional countries. When a country's core values, internal
and external, are secure, a cooperative approach becomes more
feasible.
Economic Security
Given Singapore's reliance on export-led growth and the premium it
places on the liberal international trading regime, which in turn
nourishes its manufacturing sector, the maintenance of economic
security is extremely important. At the same time as a sustainable
manufacturing sector requires cost competitiveness, it is necessary to
protect the local workforce from foreign competition. These twin
objectives are not entirely reconcilable. Moreover, the PAP
government's emphasis on performance criteria inevitably implies
high growth rates and full employment. To deflect the burden brought
on by high land and labor costs, Singapore has devised a strategy of
investing its hefty savings and surpluses abroad in order to gain higher
returns on investment. This policy of regionalizing the domestic
economy is meant to allow for sustainable high growth on the basis of
repatriated profits.
The creation of the Economic Development Board to coordinate
Singapore's industrialization policy was the precursor to the creation
of a large number of statutory boards to attract foreign investment and
remain economically competitive: the Development Bank of
Singapore, the Jurong Town Corporation, the National Productivity
Board, and the

 Page 603
International Trading Company (INTRACO) in 1968. A year later, the
Singapore Institute of Standards and Industrial Research (SISIR) was
established. This state-coordinated preemptive economic policy paid
off handsomely over the next two decades. Between 1965 and 1989
Singapore's GNP grew by 7 percent annually while its real GDP grew
by 9 percent annually from 1971 to 1980 and a further 6.3 percent
annually from 1981 to 1990 (Key Indicators 1990; World
Development Report 1991). Monopoly control over the provision of a
number of utilities and services, as well as the proliferation of state-
controlled and partially state-funded Government-Linked Companies
(GLCs), have further entrenched the state in the domestic economy. A
recent survey revealed that the Singapore public service, together with
an array of statutory bodies and GLCs, is currently the largest
employer in the country.

Economic security has an external dimension, as well, because

approximately three-quarters of the country's GNP is derived from
trade. Consequently, since the late 1980s Singapore has been pursuing
external economic opportunities in order to sprout "a second wing"
typically through the creation and deployment of joint-venture capital
funds with other countries and through direct investment in other
countries by way of subnational and subregional cooperation.
Economic security is also sought through regional economic
cooperation and membership in multilateral trade regimes. Of the
regional economic ventures, perhaps the most ambitious is the
creation of a growth triangle involving Singapore, the southernmost
peninsular Malaysian state of Johor, and the Indonesian province of
Riau (Low and Toh 1993). The scheme involves uniting three
geographically proximate areas to derive economic benefits through
complementarity. The former common trading area of the Johore-Riau
Empire was severed in 1824 by the demarcation of Dutch and British
possessions and, subsequently, the three independent successor states.
Differential development under colonial rule bequeathed distinct
factor endowments in the three nodes of the triangle, and those
endowments are now being reintegrated on the basis of comparative
advantage. Land and labor costs in Riau are as little as one-half to
one-quarter of the Singapore level, for instance, whereas Singapore
offers efficient financial and business services already fully integrated
into global markets. The triangle is viewed as a core area for growth
that can be extended and replicated throughout the region and will
contribute to the crystallization of an ASEAN Free Trade Area
(AFTA) (Tsao Yuan Lee 1991). As part of its policy to nurture a
second economic wing abroad, the Singapore government has also
pursued investment opportunities abroad by setting up industrial parks
in Suzhou

 Page 604
(China), Madras and Bangalore (India), and Vietnam. Spearheaded by
political elites, such investments typically involve statutory boards,
GLCs, and local multinationals.
Demonstrating its support for multilateral trade regimes, Singapore
lobbied hard for the realization of AFTA, which was initiated in
January 1993. Through a scheme of Common Effective Preferential
Tariffs (CEPT), ASEAN hopes to achieve AFTA by 2003. Moreover,
the headquarters of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)
council is located in Singapore. Despite serious reservations from
ASEAN members like Malaysia, Singapore has steadfastly moved in
the direction of greater institutionalization of APEC. Recently
Singapore has referred bilateral trade disputes with Malaysia to the
GATT Council for resolution; finally, after intense lobbying,
Singapore secured the privilege of hosting the inaugural meeting of
the newly formed World Trade Organization (WTO) in December
1996. Collectively these efforts reflect the importance Singapore
places on external economic security (Acharya and Ramesh 1993).
Threats to domestic economic security are deflected through a high
domestic savings rate. The compulsory Central Provident Fund (CPF)
requires that some 40 percent of all wage earners' income be saved
and pooled into a national fund to provide for the purchase of public
housing that is subjected to income ceilings. A high rate of domestic
saving, especially when it is held in trust by the state, allows for fiscal
stimulation of the economy during a recession. The PAP government
has traditionally had high regard for liberal economic theory, which
emphasizes the crucial role of savings and investment in order to
stimulate and sustain economic growth. Beyond the CPF, the
Singapore government has accumulated surpluses that currently stand
in excess of 100 billion Singapore dollars. A large portion of that
amount is invested in ventures abroad through the Government of
Singapore Investment Corporation (GSIC), which coordinates its
investment portfolio with the GLCs.
The shortage of skilled and semiskilled workers for sector-specific
industries is another economic problem. Especially vulnerable are the
shipbuilding and marine industry, civil construction, and the high-
technology value-added electronics industry. The problem is carefully
managed through labor legislation that allows for the importation of
foreign labor from traditional sources like Malaysia and Indonesia and
from new sources like Bangladesh, China, and Thailand. The PAP
government is mindful of the need to control the intake of foreign
workers to avoid displacing locals. To achieve this goal, a foreign
worker levy for entrepreneurs is carefully coordinated with a ratio of
foreign to local workers. Similarly, Singapore has recruited domestic
helpers from a

 Page 605
number of countries in the region, especially the Philippines and Sri
Lanka. Foreign workers presently account for approximately 10
percent of Singapore's total population of about 3 million.
Internal Political Security
The need for measures aimed at strengthening internal security is
much less pressing now than in the immediate postindependence
period. Thirty years of independence has allowed Singapore to
achieve a relatively cohesive national identity. The corporatized
control of labor through NTUC, the projection of the state as
ethnically neutral and secular, the consistent application of
meritocratic principles and universal criteria for the public service and
GLCssuch policies are generally well received and rarely challenged.
Beginning in 1984, however, the PAP government embarked on a
policy of "total defense" to reinvoke national identity and sensitize the
population to the link between the state's ability to respond speedily to
domestic crises and the positive impact of that ability in deterring
would-be aggressors (B. H. Lee 1989).
The security of the political system and the PAP is maintained in a
number of ways. Beginning in the 1960s, the PAP government has
depoliticized its citizenry and relied increasingly on economic
performance to enhance its own legitimacy. Using the language of
meritocracy and a paternalistic governing style, the government has
successfully marginalized the political opposition. And by co-opting
the civil service, the PAP government has achieved an identity of
interests with the bureaucratic elite on which it has increasingly drawn
for its pool of parliamentarians. In this regard, it would be more
accurate to speak of a ruling administration in the Singapore case
(Khong 1995). Moreover, the nonideological and technocratic
character of the government has allowed for a proliferation of
statutory boards and GLCs to tap economic opportunities and provide
for the dispensation of patronage and largesse to the ruling
administration. Collectively these developments have not only
allowed for the survival of the political system but, more important,
blurred the distinction between the interests of the state and those of
the PAP.
A paternalistic ruling style couched in the idiom of meritocracy offers
little latitude for political challenge and contestation. There are
effectively no strategic interactions between social groups. Such
groups have traditionally had no access to state power. Their interests
and activities are often preempted or co-opted by government
agencies or initiativesthe manner in which the AMP was gradually
made to reach accommodation with MENDAKI is a classic
illustration. Often, though, the sensible recommendations of social
groups like AWARE are

 Page 606
ultimately adopted by the government without due acknowledgment
to the social groupas was the case with a number of policies dealing
with domestic and criminal violence against women. In a worst-case
scenario, a social group may be entirely bypassed in its efforts to
influence policy outputas was the case with the NSS.
Problems associated with drugs have traditionally been dealt with by
the legal system. Harsh penalties are imposed on drug addicts,
including prison terms and lengthy stays in reformative training
centers, and drug traffickers face a mandatory death sentence. Beyond
these legal measures, community self-help groups such as MENDAKI
run halfway houses to help addicts reintegrate into the mainstream of
society. Other nonconventional threats to security do not pose a
problem per se and are generally dealt with efficiently by state
enforcement agencies. Land and air pollution is strictly monitored by
the Ministry of the Environment, for example, and sea pollution by
the Maritime and Port Authority. Illegal immigrants are dealt with by
the Police Coast Guard and the Immigration Department. Smuggling
is monitored by the Customs and Excise Department. Singapore's
extraordinarily efficient bureaucracy has generally been very
successful in deflecting nonconventional threats to internal security.
Looking Ahead
Singapore's conception of security is primarily in the realist tradition.
This is partly a function of perceived vulnerabilities due to its size,
domestic constraints, and strained bilateral relations with the
significantly larger neighboring states of Malaysia and Indonesia. The
high premium placed on external security is instructive and certainly
not unique in Southeast Asia. The entire region is made up of newly
independent states that jealously guard their sovereignty. Although
interdependence among Southeast Asian states is encouraged, such
interdependence must not challenge state sovereignty. Where
opportunities can be pursued without challenging the political status
quo, there is likely to be progress. Where such opportunities directly
challenge state sovereignty, there is likely to be stalemate.
The dominance of realist thinking in Singapore's security conception
is facilitated by an exaggerated sense of vulnerability that is
constantly reinforced through policy pronouncements. This realist
outlook informs policy formulation only in relation to maritime
Southeast Asia, however, which is Singapore's immediate security
environment. Values associated with neoliberalism, values that derive
from an idealist noncompetitive worldview, are increasingly
informing Singapore's security

 Page 607
policies outside maritime Southeast Asia, especially those pertaining
to economic security. Yet even those attempts can be located within a
realist worldview: Singapore is preoccupied with creating strategic
depth in order to compensate for its vulnerabilities.
A competitive zero-sum worldview sufficed for Singapore in the
immediate postindependence period and throughout much of the
1970s and 1980s. Recent changes in global systemic structures,
however, have softened the idiom of archrealism for Singapore's
policy makers. Dissipation of the communist threat, both internally
and externally, has led to a growing emphasis on the observation of
norms and rules in the conduct of international affairs. Moreover, a
competitive worldview no longer fits the requirements of a trading
state whose survival and prosperity depend on an open regional and
international trading system. As the country matures and as regional
efforts at economic and political cooperation gather momentum in
Southeast Asia and the Asia-Pacific, Singapore's conception of
external security is likely to become less realist and competitive. The
demands of the regional environment will require no less. Little
progress can be made in trade and investment opportunities with
countries that sense they are being co-opted to fulfill the security
needs of a trading state. Mutual gain, rather than mutual fear, provides
a better foundation for economic interdependence and growth.
The future is also likely to hold a number of domestic challenges for
Singapore's securityabove all the reconciliation of a national identity
that emphasizes, on the one hand, ethnic neutrality, and on the other,
recent public policies such as promotion of communal self-help
groups that utilize ethnicity as an organizing principle. Another
challenge can be seen in the PAP government's attempts to deal with
declining electoral support. Such a decline may be interpreted to mean
that the PAP, despite its attempts to blur the differences between the
ruling administration's interests and the state's interests, has not
succeeded in convincing the population at large of its indispensability
for the political survival of Singapore. Finally, industrial relocation
outside Singapore by multinational corporations for the sake of
greater economic efficiency may undermine the compact achieved
with foreign multinationals to entrench Singapore's economic
security. Such a development would also undermine the PAP
government's ability to fulfill the performance criteria on which it has
increasingly relied to secure its legitimacy.

 Page 609

PART III
CONCLUSION

 Page 611

19
Asian Practice of Security Key Features and Explanations
Muthiah Alagappa
The preceding chapters investigated and explained the security
thinking and behavior of central decision makers in individual Asian
states. Drawing on the empirical data and the insights from these
chapters as well as other published works, this penultimate chapter
seeks to ascertain and explain the key common features that
characterize the practice of security in Asia. It is divided into two
parts. The first discusses the five key features that characterize the
practice of security in most if not all Asian countries. The five
features are as follows: (1) the state is the primary security referent
but it is also problematic; (2) security concerns of Asian states span
domestic, regional, and global levels; (3) the core security concern is
political survival, which is articulated by Asian central decision
makers in a broad or ''comprehensive" manner; (4) self-help is the
dominant strategy but increasingly cooperation and community-
building also characterize the Asian approach to security; and (5)
Asian practices of security have been dynamic, and more change can
be expected. Taken together these five features effectively capture and
represent security practice in Asia, but they are by no means
exhaustive. They are also not unique to Asia: several of them
characterize the practice of security in other parts of the world as well.
The second part of the chapter endeavors to explain security practice
in Asia. Two propositions are advanced. First, explanations of Asian
security practice must incorporate and, where necessary, integrate
intrastate, unit-level, and systemic factors. In this context the history
and


 Page 612
nature of Asian political units are crucial. Without them we cannot
explain the contested nature and multiplicity of security referents, the
concern with internal security, certain aspects of international
security, and the broad scope and changing nature of security. Yet
unit-level factors alone cannot explain all security behavior. Systemic
constraints and opportunities are crucial as well. Undue emphasis on
any one levelas in weak-state analysis that privileges the intrastate
level, for example, or in structural realism that privileges the material
structure of the international systemwill miss certain key aspects and
distort analysis. The second proposition argues that only a
combination of material and ideational factors can explain the full
range of security concerns and behavior of Asian governments as well
as the variations among them. Ideational factors facilitate explanation
in at least three ways: first, along with material factors, they determine
social reality and influence both the definition and urgency of the
security problem as well as the approaches deployed to preserve and
enhance security. Second, by providing key insights into the
construction of actor identity and interests, ideational factors extend
the causal chain, and thus afford a deeper understanding and more
complete explanation of the causes and nature of conflicts. Finally,
they help explain variations in security behavior across states as well
as changes in the security practice of individual states over time.
Because no existing theory can capture and explain every aspect of
the practice of security in Asia, the concluding section of the chapter
argues for the acceptance of multiple theoriesin the fields of both
international relations and comparative politicsand their selective
deployment to address the puzzle in question. It also argues that
teaching and research on Asian security must be broad-based,
integrating history, culture, economics, domestic politics, and
international politics.
Part One: Basic Features
One of the striking aspects of Asia is its great diversity. Asian
countries vary widely in terms of size, political systems, level of
economic development, sociocultural values, and military capabilities.
These variations, which also affect security practice, undoubtedly
make it difficult to generalize about all of Asia. Despite the diversity,
it is possible to cite five common features that characterize the
practice of security in most if not all Asian states.
The State: Primary but Problematic Security Referent
The first and most basic feature is that the state is the primary security
referent for the central decision makers and in most cases for the

 Page 613
staatsvolk as well. This characteristic stems from the fact that the
nation-state is the most valued form of political organization in Asia.
Indeed, the idea of nation as the basis for political community and the
related construct of the nation-state are viewed by the elite and the lay
public as normative ideals to be achieved.

1 The existence of secessionist movements is indicative of

dissatisfaction with the specific construction of states, not with the
idea of the nation-state. The goal of these movements is to create new
nation-states in which the fit between the new state and their ethnic or
religious nation will be closer, and in which they will become the
dominant group that controls state power. Relatively recent liberation
from colonial rule or semicolonial status, concern that
othersespecially the Western powersmay seek to subvert their
independence, sensitivity to the arbitrariness or incompleteness of
their nation-states, and the lack of significant competing ideas or
actors at the regional level that can rival the nation-state for political
allegiance are among the reasons for the strong attachment to the state
in Asia. Unlike in Europe, there is little cause to argue that the state is
in decline in Asia. The goal of the "national" political elites is to
create strong modern nation-states. There is little interest in building
larger political communities. In fact supranationalism is specifically
guarded against. The exception is the economic realm, where
international specialization is accepted and even promoted. In some
cases specialization has led to the contemplation of larger economic
communities. Such economic initiatives, however, have been
undertaken in the belief that they will aid in industrialization and
modernization and thus strengthen the state, not weaken it.

The problem, however, is that very few Asian states, among them
Japan, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Cambodia, are nation-states in the strict
sense of the term. The vast majority, including the postcolonial states
as well as China and Thailand, are multinational states, and a
fewNorth and South Korea, China, and Taiwanare divided nations.
Nearly all the multinational states are engaged in the process of
building nations on the basis of inherited territorial boundaries. These
nation-building projects along with other factors have alienated
sections of the population the Tibetans and Uigurs in China, the
Malay-Muslims in southern Thailand, the Muslim Kashmiris and until
recently the Sikhs in India, the Tamils in Sri Lanka, the Chakmas in
Bangladesh, and until recently the Moros in southern Philippines and
the many minority groups in Burmathat have come to view the
existing state and the incumbent government not as providers of but as
threats to security. In these cases, most certainly the state is not the
security referent for the disaffected peoples. Their allegiance may lie
with alternative religious or ethno-

 Page 614
national entities. For the people caught in between, there may be no
security referent other than their own immediate kin.
In the divided nations (Korea, China, Vietnam until 1975) the
immediate security referent is the state. But there also exists concern
with the security of the nation that extends beyond the present
territorial boundary. South and North Korea, for example, view each
other as bitter enemies, but neither would condone and in fact each
would be very concerned about an attack on the other by a third
country. And, although the two governments are hostile to each other,
neither would deliberately pursue a policy specifically designed to
cause massive harm to the other's population (see Chapter 6). As
pointed out by Chung-In Moon (Chapter 7), the security of the Korean
nation has begun to figure in South Korean security thinking.
Similarly, China is concerned about the security of the Chinese nation,
which is deemed to include not only Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan
but, in some ways, also the Chinese populations in other states.
Beijing's criticism of the Indonesian government for its failure to
protect ethnic Chinese during the Medan riots in 1994 is illustrative of
this concern with the security of the broader Chinese nation. It must
be stressed, however, that although the two Koreas and the PRC take
an interest in the security of the segments of their nations that are
presently not part of the current state, the security of the state is the
immediate concern and it takes priority when there is a conflict of
interest between the two.
Even in countries where the nation and state coincide, the state need
not always be the security referent for all peoples. In the post-World
War II period, there was considerable distrust of the Japanese state as
an agent and provider of security on the part of left-leaning groups
(see Chapter 5). Over time that distrust has abated but not
disappeared. The genocidal Khmer Rouge-dominated state was not
the security referent for the bulk of the Cambodian people. Similarly,
in the postunification period, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam
(DRV) was not the security referent for a substantial segment of
population in southern Vietnam, hundreds of thousands of whom fled
the country.
Further, there is a tendency among governments, especially in
communist and authoritarian states, to conflate their own security with
that of the state. Survival of the incumbent government is often
articulated as vital for the survival of the nation-state and for the
people's well-being. The Chinese Communist Party, the Vietnamese
Communist Party, the Suharto government, the State Law and Order
Restoration Council in Myanmareach sees its own survival as critical
for the country's political and economic survival. Any challenge to
their hold on power or to the political system they represent is
therefore addressed, implicitly or

 Page 615
explicitly, as a threat to national security. This was also the case
during the era of authoritarian governments in Taiwan, South Korea,
and Thailand: the Kuomintang (KMT) in Taiwan; the Syngman Rhee,
Park Chung Hee, and Chun Doo Hwan military dictatorships in South
Korea; the Sarit and Thanom-Praphat military governments in
Thailand all defined national security to include the security of their
own governments. As Panitan Wattanayagorn (Chapter 13) points out,
the preservation and enhancement of the monarchy vis-à-vis other
competing elite groups was a crucial part of the security conceptions
of the Thai kings from Rama V through Rama VIII. In all these cases,
the regime has become a crucial security referent for the central
decision makers but not for the groups that contest the legitimacy of
the current political system.
The point is that although the state is the primary security referent
from the perspective of the central decision makers, this is not
necessarily so with respect to other sections of the elite and the body
politic. There are many situations in which segments of the elite or
population may feel alienated from the state and may identify with
other ideas and entities, some of which may compete with the existing
state as the basis for political community. In these situations often
there are multiple and competing security referents. The arbitrariness
or incompleteness of Asian states qua nation-states, and
dissatisfaction with the status quo on the part of some segments of the
population or the central decision makers themselves, also underlie
the security concerns of Asian leaders.
Security Concerns: Domestic and International
The second feature is that both the domestic and international arenas
may be sources of insecurity for Asian states. Often the security
concerns in these two arenas are interconnected, and the interface is
particularly important for understanding the security behavior of
certain countries. Internal security concerns frequently affect the
international behavior of Asian states. That, however, does not imply
that all their international security concerns can be reduced to this
consideration. Similarly, it would be wrong to locate all internal
conflicts in the international situationa common mistake made by
outsiders during the Cold War. The key point is that Asian security
concerns span both the internal and international levels. The relative
salience of the levels and their interconnections vary by country,
issue, and circumstances.
The Concern with Internal Security
Internal conflicts have been a prominent feature of the Asian political
landscape. Since 1945 Asia has witnessed numerous civil wars, armed

 Page 616
insurgencies, coups d'état, regional rebellions, and revolutions, and
innumerable racial, ethnic, and religious riots and unrests. Many of
them have been protracted; several have had far-reaching political and
territorial consequences. The civil war in Pakistan led to the breakup
of that country in 1971; separatist struggles threaten the territorial
integrity of Sri Lanka, India, China, Indonesia, Burma, the
Philippines, and Thailand; political uprisings in Thailand (1973 and
1991) and the Philippines (1986) resulted in dramatic political change
in those countries; political uprisings in Burma (1988) and China
(1989) posed fundamental challenges to the legitimacy of their
political systems and incumbent governments. In all, tens of millions
of people have been killed in these conflicts. Most of the conflicts
have been perceived and addressed by governments as threats to
national security; some groups and peoples involved in the conflicts,
however, have viewed the government and the state itself as a threat
to security. Internal security concerns in Asia may be traced to
conflict over two issuesnational identity and political legitimacy.
Socioeconomic grievances may also be a source of conflict, but often
they feed into the conflicts over the ideational basis for delineating
and organizing political community and over the normative
framework for the acquisition and exercise of political power.
National Identity and Internal Conflict
One key consequence of the colonial period, as noted in Chapter 2,
was the transformation of Asian political units into "multiethnic
territorialisms" on the basis of which present-day states have been
constructed. Colonial inheritance, especially the colonial boundary, is
a crucial basis for the "national" imagination of Asian political elites
(Anderson 1991). It has therefore been vested with a sacred quality. In
the case of China, its political imagination is influenced by its
historical position and possessions and by the humiliation and losses it
suffered in its encounter with the colonial powers. Any infringement
of present territorial boundaries is viewed by these states as a
challenge to the legitimacy of their nation-states with the potential to
fragment their countries. The political meaning attached to territory
explains the deep attachment to the norm of territorial integrity and
the present-day rejection of the very principle of national self-
determination that the Asian political elites once deployed to good
advantage against colonial authorities. In the postindependence
period, national leaders have argued strongly for national unity and
integration. Asian political elites are committed to building nations on
the basis of their existing boundaries and peoples. Regardless of the
model adopted, nation-building in multiethnic Asian societies has
inevitably created tension and conflict because nation-

 Page 617
building, as noted by Walker Connor (1972: 336), is inevitably nation-
destroying. In Asia, as elsewhere, nation-building has privileged
certain groups and values while subordinating, marginalizing, or even
seeking to eliminate others. The process has generated two
interrelated types of conflict.
In the first type, the contention is over the essence and character of the
nation: what does it mean, for example, to be a Malaysian, an Indian,
or an Indonesian? This kind of contestation occurs in the political
heartland itself and has consequences for the entire country. Tensions
between the ideas of Malaysian Malaysia and Malay Malaysia,
between secular India and Hindu India, between Muslim Indonesia
and Pancasila Indonesia, fall into this category. The inclusion of an
additional two million Chinese under the Malaysia projectalong with
the demand by the People's Action Party (PAP) under the leadership
of Lee Kuan Yew for a "Malaysian Malaysia" in which all citizens
regardless of race will have equal rights and opportunitieswas
perceived by the Malay leadership as undermining the Malayness of
the nation as well as threatening the dominant political position of the
Malay community. This conflict over the identity of the Malaysian
nation eventually led to the separation of Singapore from Malaysia in
1965.

2 Such concerns also featured prominently in the prologue to the May

1969 racial riots in Malaysia.

In India, secular nationalists and Hindu nationalists have conflicting

ideas about what it means to be an Indian (Varshney 1993: 227-61).
The secularist project, which has been the official doctrine of India's
national identity since independence, embraces the cultural and
economic security of all ethnic and religious groups and seeks to forge
an Indian identity based on the goal of a modern future, based on
modernization and economic development, and on common destiny.
For Hindu nationalists, Hinduism is the source of India's national
identity. Muslims, who form some 12 percent of India's population,
are thus the adversaries of Hindu nationalists. The tension between the
secular and religious ideas of the Indian nation has been present for
decades: it led initially to the partitioning of India in 1947 and
resurfaced with vigor in the 1980s.3 Similarly, a major issue among
the Indonesian nationalist elite in 1945 was whether Indonesia should
be an Islamic nation. Although that contest was formally resolved
through a compromise formulation, some Islamic groups continued to
harbor the goal of an Islamic nation.4 The Darul Islam movements
and the PRRI rebellions in the 1950s were informed by this goal
among others. The tension continued into the 1980s, when Islamic
groups resisted the New Order's proposition that Pancasila should be
the sole basis for political organi-

 Page 618
zation. Since 1965, the New Order government, particularly the
military establishment, has continued to view political Islam, along
with communism, as a key threat to the unity of the Indonesian nation
and state (see Chapter 15).

The second type of conflict is more explicitly between the staatsvolk

who constitute the political center and indigenous minority
communities in the periphery that have a historic attachment to
specific territory and who frequently constitute the majority in those
areas. Some of these minority communities have historic claims to
statehood as well. Nation-building, which invariably is carried out in
the image of the majority community, is viewed by certain minority
groups as "internal colonialism" designed to undermine their political,
sociocultural, and economic identities and interests, perhaps even
survival. This outlook has contributed to a rise in ethnic, racial,
linguistic, and religious consciousness and disenchantment with the
existing nation-state and has led, ultimately, to violent minority
demands for autonomy or separate statehood. Governments and the
staatsvolk perceive the national consciousness of minority groups and
their demands as a threat to national security.
Such a conflict between the politically dominant Punjabi community
and the numerically larger Bengali community over identity of the
Pakistani nation led to bloody civil war, India's military intervention,
and the breakup of Pakistan, resulting in the emergence of Bangladesh
as an independent state in 1971 (Qureshi 1993; Jahan 1972).6 Conflict
over identity informs the armed separatist struggles being waged by
Muslim Kashmiris, by several insurgent groups in the northeastern
states, and until recently by Sikh independence movements in India.
In Sri Lanka, the attempt by the Sinhala majority to construct Sri
Lanka as a Sinhala-Buddhist nation-state (Obeyesekere 1995) has
alienated the Tamil minority, who deny the Sinhala claim for
exclusive nationhood.7 From their perspective, not only is the
Sinhala-Buddhist construction materially disadvantageous, but their
exclusion from the definition of what it means to be Sri Lankan raises
basic questions about their identity as well as fears about the survival
of Tamil culture and language (Pfaffenberger 1990).
Similar considerations inform the demands for autonomy or
separation by the Chakma minority in Bangladesh (see Chapter 9), the
Muslims in southern Thailand (Dulyakasem 1984; Farouk 1984), the
West Irianese and East Timorese in Indonesia (Hastings 1984), the
Moros in the Philippines (Mercado 1984; Madale 1984),8 and until
recently the twelve minority communities (Shans, Kachins, Kayah,
Rakhine, Karen, Lahu, Naga, Mon, Palaung, Pa-O, Wa, and Chin) in
Burma (Steinberg 1984).9

 Page 619
In Northeast Asia, only China has been prone to majority-minority
conflict over identity. The conflict is due in large measure to Beijing's
attempt to incorporate and integrate the former vassal states of Tibet
and Inner Mongolia, as well as the Muslim provinces in northwestern
China, as part of China proper. For several reasons, ethnonationalism
is on the rise among the Muslim community in Xinjiang province
(Gladney 1996), and the Tibetans have been engaged in a struggle for
autonomy and independence since the Chinese invasion and
occupation of their country in 1951. Beijing recognizes 55 minorities
as nationalities, but only as part of China. It has denied the Tibetan
claim for independence and has harshly suppressed ethnonational
movements in Tibet and Xinjiang.
Political Legitimacy and Internal Conflict
In all but a few states (Brunei, Thailand, and Nepal), colonial rule
destroyed or marginalized traditional political systems that were
almost exclusively monarchical.

10 In any case, traditional systems and structures were not acceptable

to most of the elite who waged the struggle for independence. They
espoused new (and largely Western) ideas for political organization:
democracy, variants of socialism, communism, and, later, indigenous
versions of universal ideologies, among them Pancasila Democracy,
Barangay Democracy, Burmese Way to Socialism, and socialism with
a Chinese face or with Vietnamese characteristics. Thus after
independence, the ideological basis for the structure of political
domination and the associated normative framework for the
acquisition and exercise of political power had to be constructed
anew. Differences in ideology divided Asian political elites during the
struggle for independence and after. Ideological competition at the
national level was exacerbated by the global ideological conflict
during the Cold War. In several cases the competition became violent
as groups that did not succeed to power resorted to armed struggle to
redefine the political (and economic) identities of their states.

In the first few decades of independence, the primary struggle in Asia

was between communism and an assortment of noncommunist
ideological beliefs. Communist parties or movements in China,
Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaya (later Malaysia), the
Philippines, Thailand, and Burma, with support in many cases from
the Soviet bloc, were engaged in prolonged armed struggles to capture
political power and establish communist rule in their respective
countries. The communists were successful in China in 1949, in North
Vietnam in 1954, and later in 1975 in South Vietnam, Laos, and
Cambodia. Although the armed communist struggles in the other
states gradually

 Page 620
lost momentum, at their height they posed serious threats to
incumbent governments and the political systems they advocated. All
these communist struggles, except that in the Philippines, have now
terminated.
That, however, has not meant the end of ideological contestation in
Asia. Since the 1970s authoritarian and communist systems have been
challenged by groups advocating democracy or demanding increased
political participation. These challenges have not taken the form of
armed struggle; instead, mass mobilization and protests designed to
undermine and bankrupt the legitimacy of the incumbent political
systems and governments have become common. Mass rallies and
demonstrations in the name of democracy resulted in the overthrow of
Marcos and the authoritarian system in the Philippines in 1986, and
they contributed significantly to the democratic transitions in
Thailand, South Korea, and Taiwan. Although the democracy protests
in Burma (1987-88) and China (1989) did not bring about change in
the political systems of those countries, they discredited the
government in Burma and caused much consternation to the CCP.
Political systems are still weak or in a state of flux in many Asian
countriesespecially in the socialist states of China and Vietnam, in the
authoritarian states of Indonesia and Burma, and in Pakistan and
Bangladesh. The political systems in these and several other Asian
countries are likely to continue to be problematic and subject to
contestation for some time to come. Moreover, the integration of
national economies into the global economy, the rapid pace of
economic growth or the lack of it and accompanying socioeconomic
changes, and the growing force of the principle of popular sovereignty
are likely to create or exacerbate ideological conflicts, especially in
socialist and authoritarian countries. The structure of political
domination may also be challenged by religious forces, particularly in
countries that have Muslim majorities.
In the course of the last four decades, some of the internal conflicts
over identity and legitimacy have reduced in intensity or "ended,"
while others have arisen anew. The construction of national identity
and legitimate political systems and their consolidation are long-term
processes that may take decades if not centuries. There is no necessary
end. Nations and systems that appear consolidated at one point in time
may weaken, and the reverse can also occur. There can be "progress,"
but also "regress." Turbulence and change is especially likely in Asia,
where a large number of states are in the midst of fundamental
economic transitions. This situation, combined with possible
ideational changes, has the potential to generate tension and change in
social and political affairs that will also affect the international
concerns and behavior of Asian states.

 Page 621
International Security Concerns
For almost two decades now Asia has enjoyed relative peace. There
has not been a major international war since 1978-79, when Vietnam
invaded Cambodia and China undertook a punitive attack on Vietnam.
The end of the Cold War terminated the Soviet-American competition
in Asia, ended the Sino-Soviet conflict, and brought about an
international settlement (but not resolution) of the Cambodian
conflict. It also localized the Korean and Indo-Pakistani conflicts and
eased tensions in several bilateral relationships including those
between China and India, China and Vietnam, and Russia and Japan.
For the first time in five decades, no major power perceives an
immediate threat from another. Compared to the Cold War era, the
threat environment in Asia has been dramatically transformed. Asia,
however, is not free of international tensions. Conflict continues
between North and South Korea, between China and Taiwan, and
between India and Pakistan. There are territorial disputes between
Japan and Russia as well as China and India, and there are multiple
conflicting territorial claims in the East and South China Seas. In
addition there are numerous border disputes and conflicting claims
over continental shelves and exclusive economic zones (EEZs).
Virtually every country in Asia has such disputes with its neighbors.
In addition to these specific conflicts, the ongoing power transition in
Asia stemming from the collapse of the Soviet Union and, until
recently, the dramatic economic growth of East Asia is a cause of
apprehension among Asian countries. Much of that apprehension was
initially focused on Japan; now the focus is shifting to China.
Uncertainty over the future security role of the United States in the
region adds to the apprehensions of some Asian countries. Thus,
despite the relative peace and prosperity in the region, international
security continues to be of concern to Asian governments.
Political survival, defined broadly, is still a security concern in many
Asian states. It is not always precarious or urgent, however, and it
takes several forms. In its most basic form, the very existence of the
state as an independent political entity is under challenge. This is
presently the case with Taiwan and the two Koreas: one of the two
Koreas may well disappear from the political map in the next decade
or two, and Taiwan too may cease to be a sovereign entity.
Singapore's survival as an independent state was perceived to be
precarious by its leaders in the 1960s and 1970s because of the
hostility of its larger Malay-Muslim neighbors. More recently
Cambodia, which has been progressively reduced from a mighty
empire to a small state, feared that it would be annexed by Vietnam.
But the survival of Singapore and, to a lesser degree, that of

 Page 622
Cambodia (and tiny Brunei) now appears assured at least for the
foreseeable future. Only the existence of Taiwan and the two Koreas
is threatened seriously. There is no similar international threat to the
existence of the other Asian states. Contemporary international norms,
as well as their own internal structures and capabilities, support their
continued existence as sovereign states.
For these countries, political survival concerns fall into three
categoriesterritorial integrity, international challenges to their political
ideologies, and constraints on their autonomy. On the issue of
territorial integrity, most of the concerns have to do with boundary
demarcation or conflicting claims arising from the delimitation of
territorial waters and exclusive economic zones. Some, like the
territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, have a historical
dimension. These disputes, by and large, do not affect the integrity of
states in any significant manner. Nevertheless, because of the political
meaning or economic value attached to them, some such disputes, like
the conflicting claims in the South China Sea, may lead to limited
military clashes. Only in rare cases are they likely to lead to full-
fledged international wars. There are, however, a few territorial
disputessuch as Pakistan's claim to Kashmir or the Philippine claim to
Sabahthat, if realized, will have major consequences for the political
and territorial integrity of the affected countries. Because the
Philippine claim to Sabah is all but dead, presently the only grave
conflict in this category is the Indo-Pakistani dispute over Kashmir.
The Kashmir conflict, however, is not entirely or even primarily about
territory; as I will argue later, it is very much a conflict over identity.
The second concern is with international challenges to the political
ideology of some states. As noted earlier, the legitimacy of political
systems is weak or problematic in many Asian states, especially in
China, Vietnam, Myanmar, and Indonesia. Governments in these
countries are extremely sensitive to international political-ideological
threats. Such challenges deny international legitimacy to the
incumbent power holders and sustain internal challenges by providing
dissidents with moral, political, and in some cases material support.
During the Cold War, noncommunist governments confronted by
internal communist movements were gravely concerned with the
threat from international communism. One tended to magnify the
other, and often the two became fused. In a somewhat similar fashion,
several Asian governments, especially the authoritarian and socialist
ones, are now concerned with internal and international democratic
challenges.
In China and Vietnam, the socialist systems are in a state of crisis and
have been redefined both to permit market-oriented economic

 Page 623
reforms and to legitimate the continued monopoly of political power
by the respective communist parties. Because democracy is seen as a
threat to both these purposes, the Chinese and Vietnamese
governments have firmly suppressed internal democratic challenges
and opposed international support for them. Western projections of
democracy and human rights as universal values are perceived as a
threat. The same has been the case in Burma. Following the
suppression of the popular 1988 uprising and the military's refusal to
transfer power to the National League for Democracy (NLD), which
won a landslide victory in the May 1990 elections, many Western
governments demanded that power be transferred to the NLD. In
addition to imposing sanctions, they provided moral, political, and
very limited economic support for the prodemocracy groups both
inside and outside Burma. To symbolize the opposition of the
(Western) international community, Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded
the Nobel peace prize. These actions have been perceived by the State
Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) as a threat to the
sovereignty of Burma and to Burmese values, a threat driven by
imperial and conspiratorial motives. At base, however, is the concern
for its own survival. Although the problem of ideological challenges
is less acute in the other Asian states, it is still an important issue in
many of them. This concern, in part, informs the fear of globalization
in South Asian states (see Chapters 4 and 11) and the negative
response of the East Asian states to the West's projection of
democracy and human rights as universal values and impels their own
propagation and defense of Asian values (Alagappa 1994; Hitchcock
1994).
The third concern with regard to political survival is tied to the belief
that sovereign states have a right to manage their international affairs
independently. Threats to autonomy have been of particular concern
to some small states located close to disproportionately large ones:
Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka vis-à-vis India; Burma vis-à-vis
China and India; Vietnam and Mongolia vis-à-vis China; Korea vis-à-
vis Russia, China, and Japan; Cambodia and Laos vis-à-vis Vietnam
and Thailand; Singapore, Brunei, and Malaysia vis-à-vis Indonesia;
and Brunei and Singapore vis-à-vis Malaysia. Autonomy has also
been of concern to the larger countries: Indonesia vis-à-vis the larger
powers; India vis-à-vis China and the United States; China vis-à-vis
the United States and earlier the Soviet Union; and now Japan vis-à-
vis China.
The ongoing power transition in Asia is another cause of concern to
regional states. In the 1980s the focus of apprehension was a rising
Japan. The possibility of its becoming a ''normal" power is still
worrisome, especially to the two Koreas and to China. More recently
the regional

 Page 624
concern has shifted to China. There is considerable fear and
uncertainty as to the behavior of a rising China. Such apprehension,
however, is not uniform throughout the region. Economic
modernization and the expected increase in Indian power has
increased the autonomy concerns of the other South Asian states.
More generally, the ongoing power transition and the collapse or
weakening of Cold War security mechanisms have created a sense of
uncertainty and unpredictability in the region. The concerns arising
from considerations of autonomy and the power transition are long-
term in nature but they do inform the perception of the severity of the
other, more immediate concerns.
Although the internal and international security concerns have been
discussed separately, several of them are interconnected. The conflict
over Kashmir is both internal and international; the international
ideological threats perceived by China, Vietnam, and Burma are
connected to the domestic challenges they confront with regard to
political legitimacy; some of the tensions and hostilities in the
bilateral relations of the Malay archipelagic states are connected to
ethnic tensions within those countries. The interconnection of the
concerns at the two levels is crucial to the understanding of a
substantial part of the security behavior of Asian states and their
"comprehensive" definition of security.
The Scope of Security: A Broad View
The third feature of Asian security practice is that Asian central
decision makers articulate security in broad terms. The phrase
comprehensive security, first coined by Japan in 1980 and used widely
in the ASEAN states, is now gaining currency in most other Asian
states as well. Though labels and interpretations vary, comprehensive
security generally implies that security goes beyond (but does not
exclude) the military to embrace the political, economic, and
sociocultural dimensions. Comprehensive security in the Japanese
interpretation implies that the pursuit of security requires not only the
deployment of military power but also "political power, dynamic
economic strength, creative culture, and thoroughgoing diplomacy"
(Prime Minister Ohira, quoted in Akao 1983: 10). Ketahanan
nasionalthe Indonesian security doctrine articulated by the Suharto
government after it came to power in 1966posits that security has
political, economic, sociocultural, and military aspects, that threats to
security can issue from the domestic as well as the international
environment, that these are frequently interconnected, and that the
approach to security must be multidimensional (Alagappa 1988; see
also Chapter 15). "Security," according to the Malaysian Prime
Minister Mahathir Mohamad, "is not just a matter of military
capability.

 Page 625
National security is inseparable from political stability, economic
success, and social harmony. Without these all the guns in the world
cannot prevent a country from being overcome by its enemies, whose
ambitions can sometimes be fulfilled without firing a single shot."

11

Since the early 1980s, China too has articulated security in broad
terms and accorded greater emphasis to economic development and
technology in the belief that national security depends on the nation's
overall strength, not just its military might (see Chapter 3). China's
definition of comprehensive security includes social and political
stability. Comprehensive security, along with common and
cooperative security, appears to have become more significant in the
Chinese articulation of security in the post-Cold War period. More
recently Vietnamese and South Korean leaders have begun to
articulate security in broad terms as well (see Chapters 14 and 7,
respectively). Indeed, it is possible to argue that comprehensive
security is emerging as a norm in Asia. The comprehensive view of
security in Asian states is more than just rhetoricit does affect policy
and behaviorbut it is not an operational concept. It is better viewed as
an intellectual foundation for thinking about security at the highest
levels of government, with consequences for the determination of
national priorities, including budgetary allocation, and the strategies to
be deployed in the pursuit of security.
Political Survival: The Core of Comprehensive Security
For most states, the core component of comprehensive security is still
political survival. This problem, however, is seen in holistic terms,
and the political rather than the military dimension receives top
billing. Political survival is thus defined to include not only
international autonomy and territorial integrity but also one or more of
the following: national unity, political stability, social harmony, law
and order, protection of the existing political system, and survival of
the incumbent government. Threats to these values are perceived to
issue not only from other states but also from within the state. Such
threats may be political, sociocultural, economic, or military in nature.
The approach to political survival must therefore combine political,
sociocultural, economic, diplomatic, and military measures.
Underlying the notion of comprehensive security is the belief that
survival and prosperity are better served by all-around strength than
by reliance on military power alone, the utility of which is perceived
to be limited and becoming more circumscribed. This does not imply
that military power is unimportant. In fact, one purpose of Tokyo's
comprehensive definition of security was to develop the hitherto
neglected

 Page 626
military dimension and facilitate military cooperation with the United
States (see Chapter 5). And, as will become evident from later
discussion, the development of national military capabilities is
commanding greater attention among Asian states in the post-Cold
War era. Rather, comprehensive definitions of security are in some
ways reactive and meant to draw attention to other aspects that have
often been omitted in traditional definitions of security, especially
during the Cold War, and to locate the military dimension in proper
perspective. The dissolution of the Soviet Union, commonly attributed
to its political and economic weakness, has reinforced the belief that
security must be viewed in broad terms. The view of national power
in broad termsmilitary, economic, demographic, geographic,
diplomatic, and so forthis similar to the earlier political realist view of
power.
Economic and Sociocultural Security: The Nonconventional
Dimensions
The security concerns articulated by Asian states often include
economic and sociocultural security. Environmental security, except
in the case of Bangladesh, does not figure in the national security
agendas of Asian statesand even in Bangladesh it is an offshoot of the
conflict with India over the sharing of transnational water resources.
Among the nonconventional dimensions, economic security has very
high priority.
Economic Security
Though frequently used, the term economic security is seldom
defined. Most commonly it refers to the promotion and safeguarding
of national prosperity. In Japan, economic security, when the phrase
gained currency in the early 1970s, denoted the concern with
"safeguarding the economic prosperity that was attained in a period of
low-cost energy and other resources." In China, economic security
relates to the drive to modernize and expand the economy. In the
Philippines, economic security in the Ramos administration refers to
"recovery and growth." In South Korea, it pertains to enhancing
international competitiveness. Notwithstanding the lack of definition,
economic security as articulated by Asian states has two aspects. First,
economic growth, development, and other such goals are viewed as
national priorities in their own right. Second, they are also viewed as a
means to address security concerns associated with political survival.
"Security through development'' is a commonly accepted principle in
many Asian states. Thus economic security is seen in the following
roles: as a key element in augmenting national power, prestige, and
influence and as a prerequisite for the development and

 Page 627
sustenance of diplomatic and military power; as enabling governments
to discharge their welfare function; as a critical resource for political
and social stability and for enhancing national resilience; as a critical
legitimation resource; and finally, as having the potential to deepen
international economic interaction and through it to ameliorate the
security dilemma and mitigate traditional security concerns.
Perceived threats to economic security vary with the circumstances of
each country. For Japan in the 1970s, in light of its resource
dependence and the international oil shock, the worrisome issues were
interruptions in the supply of oil and the steep rise in oil prices. Its
goal then was to ensure a steady supply of reasonably priced
resources. In the 1980s, the dramatic appreciation in the value of the
yen and the increasing difficulty of gaining access to markets in the
United States and Western Europe emerged as critical concerns. For
the export-oriented developing ASEAN countries, access to capital,
technology, and markets, a stable exchange rate system, and an open,
stable international trading system are critical. Developments,
intentional or otherwise, that disrupt those conditions tend to be
perceived as threats to their economic security. The initial concerns in
many Asian countries over NAFTA and Europe 1992, for example,
were precipitated by a fear of trading blocs. Dumping, asymmetric
interdependence, smuggling, and international economic espionage
have also been described as factors that undermine economic security.
Sociocultural Security
Large-scale migration, drugs, and cultural imperialism are among the
sociocultural issues that have been cited as threats to security. Large-
scale migrationthe estimated two to six million Bangladeshis in the
northeastern states of India, for example, or the presence of some half
a million Filipinos in Sabah (Malaysia)is of concern because of its
perceived negative impact on the cultural and political identity of the
receiving peoples and by extension their control of political power
(Weiner 1995; see also Chapter 4). Large-scale migration is also seen
as a social and economic burden and contains the seeds of tension and
conflict between the sending and receiving countries. The mass
migrations of Bangladeshis and Filipino Muslims, for example, have
been a source of political unrest in the Northeastern Indian states
(especially Assam) and in Sabah, respectively, and tensions have
grown between those states and their federal governments. At times
they have also generated tensions between India and Bangladesh and
between Malaysia and the Philippines.
Drug trafficking and addiction are major concerns of some states.

 Page 628
Indeed, Malaysia at one point identified the drug problem as the
number-one threat to national security. Drug addiction is perceived as
having the power to undermine national vitality and productivity and
even to subject the country to foreign domination. Memory of the
Opium Wars and their role in China's subjugation informs Beijing's
concern with the drug-related threat. Revenues from the narcotics
trade are also believed to support criminal and terrorist activities to
the detriment of law and order and, at worst, to support insurrections,
insurgencies, and warlordism. Such problems are especially serious in
Pakistan, Burma, and Sri Lanka, but they are also present in many
other states. Finally, many Asian states are concerned with cultural
threatsespecially from the Westbecause of their possible negative
consequences for social and political stability, the social essence of
the nation, or regime legitimacy. Because their effects are often
diffuse and protracted, sociocultural security concerns often, though
not always, rank below threats to political survival and economic
security.
Strategies
The threat or use of force is not viewed as relevant to promoting
economic growth or safeguarding prosperity. No Asian government
envisages a military attack on another to gain access to resources or
markets. The limited use of military force in pursuit of the conflicting
territorial claims in the South China Sea does not invalidate this
assertion. The issue of contention in the South China Sea is
sovereignty and territorial claim. That the disputed islets may have oil
and other resources as well as strategic value increases the stakes. But
this situation is different from one in which one country engages in
military conflict with another to gain access to markets or resources.
Similarly, autarky is no longer an option. Although some Asian
countries still seek to protect certain sectors, all except North Korea
have opened up or are in the process of opening up their economies
and are pursuing international strategies. There is a strong interest in
maintaining a free and open global multilateral trading system. The
forum for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) was in the
forefront of the push for a successful conclusion of the Uruguay
Round. Despite opposition from certain domestic constituencies, all
the major Asian economies except China and Taiwan, both of which
are eager to join the WTO, have signed the resulting agreement. At
the urging of the Asian countries, APEC has adopted the concept of
open regionalism to guide economic cooperation in the region.
Military force is one way that states address certain sociocultural
security concernsas in border control to prevent illegal immigration,

 Page 629
piracy, and smuggling, for example, and in combating warlordism and
terrorism. But political, legal, sociocultural, and economic measures at
the national, bilateral, and regional levels are far more significant in
addressing sociocultural issues. To counter cultural threats, for
example, Asian states have deployed the following measures:
mobilization of nationalism; expounding the virtues of indigenous
values while highlighting the shortcomings of "foreign" ideas; strict
regulation of the media; defining the bounds of political and
nonpolitical organizations; employing political, legal, and police
coercion. Asian governments have also acted in concert in
international forums such as the World Conference on Human Rights
and have supported governments like those in China and Burma that
have been the target of Western political and economic pressure and
sanctions.
Unlike the problems associated with political survival, the
nonconventional security concerns are frequently not zero-sum in
nature. Often states have a common interest in resolving them though
bilateral and regional cooperation. The fact that force is irrelevant in
addressing economic security and certain sociocultural concerns does
not, from the perspective of the Asian political elite, prevent those
issues from being regarded as security concerns. In other words,
differences in the nature of the problem, the mind-set, and instruments
of policy are not of consequence in assessing an issue as a security
concern. What matters is the impact on national well-being as judged
by the incumbent government.
Approach to Security: Competition and Cooperation
The fourth feature of Asian security practice is that it is characterized
by both competition and cooperation. In response to the
multidimensional nature of the problems of identity, legitimacy, and
socioeconomic grievances, Asia's central decision makers deploy a
wide array of measurespolitical, legal, economic, sociocultural, and
wide array of measurespolitical, legal, economic, sociocultural, and
militaryto cope with internal security challenges. Although the
specific combination varies, a carrot (economic development, power
sharing, limited autonomy) and stick (legal and military suppression)
approach has been common. Secession is ruled out, and autonomy is
offered only after much blood has been shed. These aspects have been
discussed in earlier sections.

12

The focus in this section is on the Asian approach to international

security that is characterized by a mix of coercion, dialogue, and
cooperation. Self-help, especially in the form of alliance or alignment
with one of the two superpowers, was the prominent strategy during
the Cold War period. Beginning in the early 1980s, greater emphasis
was placed

 Page 630
on national self-reliance. That policy has become more pronounced in
the post-Cold War era, although alliances continue to be critical for
countries like Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.

13 The changed threat environment and the dissolution or weakening

of Cold War security arrangements have fueled recent interest in
subregional and regional security cooperation. Though still in a
nascent phase, cooperative securitythe idea that security need not
always be zero-sum and can be achieved through cooperationis
becoming an important component of the national security strategies
of Asian states. For the short term, however, cooperative security in
Asia will be a strategy for conflict prevention through confidence-and
security-building measures and for shaping the normative structure
rather than for the containment or termination of conflict.

The Dominance of Self-Help Strategies

Alliance and alignment were the key security strategies during the
Cold War (see Chapter 2). Most Asian states allied themselves with
one of the two superpowers. Several reasons underlay the prominence
of alliance strategies during the Cold War. Asia was a high-threat
environment: most Asian governments perceived urgent political-
military threats to their national security from neighboring states.
Asian states were weak, however, and unable to counter such threats
on their own. Because the two superpowers, particularly the United
States, were ready allies, alliance became the dominant strategy.
There was no real alternative. India, Indonesia, and Burma initially
opted for a strategy of nonalignment, but that ceased to be a viable
option in the face of serious threats. The crucial rationale behind the
alliance strategies of China, India, Vietnam, Pakistan, South Korea,
and North Korea was not the regional or global distribution of power
but the presence of threats. Although the capabilities of conflicting
states entered into the calculation of severity, the threat perception
itself was informed by considerations of identity, history, and specific
conflicts of interest. All these considerations shaped the states'
perceptions of the intentions of adversaries.
After the Cold War: Greater Emphasis on National Self-Reliance
Beginning in the early 1980s there was greater emphasis on national
self-reliance, a trend that has become more pronounced following the
termination of the Cold War. Several factors account for this change:
transformation of the regional threat environment; reassessment of
national security threats; increased national capability, often
accompanied by strong nationalism; and the nonavailability of allies.

 Page 631
Although Asia continues to experience conflict and tensions, they are
localized, much less interconnected, and limited in escalation potential
compared to the Cold War period. Whatever their long-range
apprehensions, none of the major players perceives any immediate
threat from each other. Moreover, the political survival of most Asian
countries is not seriously challenged. Even in the Korean, Taiwan, and
Indo-Pakistani conflicts there is stalemate. In short, there is relative
peace and Asia has been transformed from a high-threat to a low-
threat environment. Concurrently, the national power resources of
most East and Southeast Asian countries have increased dramatically.
This state of affairs contrasts sharply with the earlier period when
most Asian states were weak and dependent on one of the two
superpowersmaking for asymmetrical or "patron-client" alliance
relationships. Today there is much greater pride, more self-
confidence, and a growing desire to be more self-reliant and avoid the
vulnerability that results from reliance on another country for security.
The strong wave of nationalism in Asian states also supports the
development of independent national capabilities.
Another critical factor is the nonavailability or unreliability of allies in
the post-Cold War era. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the
changed orientation of Russia, all Moscow-centered alliances in Asia
have been terminated. The United States, no longer engaged in a
global ideological-cum-military struggle and increasingly consumed
by domestic matters, is much less willing to take on new
commitments. In fact, it seeks to redefine some of the earlier
arrangements such as the U.S.-Japan security treaty. For several
reasons, many Asian leaders think that Washington will gradually
reduce (but not withdraw) its security role in East and Southeast Asia,
and that belief has engendered a credibility gap despite numerous
public pronouncements to the contrary by American officials
(Halloran 1995). At the same time no Asian state has presented itself
as a firm and credible ally of other Asian states. It is not surprising,
then, that self-reliance should command more attention than the
strategy of alliance.
The Buildup of National Military Capabilities
This emphasis on self-reliance is reflected in the buildup of national
military capabilities. As indicated in Table 11, considerable resources
are devoted to the defense sector. However, contrary to some
assertions (Klare 1993; Segal 1992), there is no arms race in the
region. Only in a few cases where political survival concerns are
acutethe two Koreas, Taiwan, and India-Pakistanis arms acquisition
directly driven by considerations of threats and relative capabilities.
Otherwise arms acquisition in the region is driven by several
considerations, most of which do

 Table 11
Defense Expenditure and Military Manpower of Asian States

Defense expenditure Percentage of GDP Armed forces

(millions of U.S. dollars) (thousands)
1985 1994 1995 1985 1994 1995 1985
China $27,107 $28,945 $31,731 7.9% 5.6% 5.7% 3,900.0
India 8,553 7,638 8,289 3.0 2.5 2.5 1,260.0
Japan 29,350 46,639 50,219 1.0 1.0 1.1 243.0
North Korea 5,675 5,660 5,232 23.0 26.6 25.2 838.0
South Korea 8,592 12,764 14,359 5.1 3.3 3.4 598.0
Taiwan 8,793 11,457 13,136 7.0 4.7 5.0 444.0
Indonesia 3,197 2,486 2,751 2.8 1.6 1.6 278.1
Malaysia 2,409 3,142 3,514 5.6 4.4 4.5 110.0
Singapore 1,622 3,118 3,970 6.7 5.0 5.9 55.0
Philippines 647 1,117 1,151 1.4 1.7 1.6 114.8
Thailand 2,559 3,630 3,896 5.0 2.5 2.5 235.3
Vietnam 3,277 992 910 19.4 5.1 4.3 1,027.0
Brunei 280 263 268 6.0 6.0 6.0 4.1
Pakistan 2,835 3,585 3,642 6.9 6.9 6.5 482.8
Bangladesh 341 475 500 1.4 1.8 1.8 91.3
Sri Lanka 311 526 624 3.8 4.4 4.9 21.6
Note: Expenditures are based on 1995 constant dollars
Source: The Military Balance 1996-97. Oxford University Press for The International Institute

 Page 633
not relate to threat perceptions and power balancing (Ball 1996).
Further, although military modernization is receiving greater
attention, it is still subordinate to the goal of economic modernization.
Military modernization is likely to be downgraded if economic growth
slows or falters. And the military capabilities being acquired, when
viewed in a broader context, are not substantial.
Among the reasons cited in support of the proposition that an arms
race is under way in Asia, two are prominent: one is high defense
spending (the double-digit increases in the Chinese defense budget;
the defense budget of Japan, which in absolute terms is the second-
highest in the world; and the increase in the defense spending of
certain Southeast Asian states), and the other is the acquisition of
sophisticated platforms and weapons systems (China's acquisition of
SU-27s, SU-30s, and cruise missile platforms, its possible acquisition
of aircraft carriers, the air and naval acquisitions of some of the
ASEAN countries). A closer examination, however, reveals the
weakness in these arguments. Although Japan's defense spending is
high in absolute terms, as a proportion of gross domestic product it
has dropped to less than 1 percent. Further, much of the allocation
goes toward the cost of personnel and for support of the American
military presence in Japan. And Japanese capabilities are designed for
immediate self-defense and to complement American strategy in the
region, not to support a national vision or to compete with a specific
state. Similarly, although China's defense spending is increasing, it is
starting from a small base, and the Chinese air and naval forces still
have many daunting problems to overcome.

14 The air and naval capabilities being acquired by the Southeast

Asian states, except those of Singapore, are not substantial, and they
are not directed at addressing or balancing any specific threat. Some
countries, such as India (despite its perception of threat from China
and New Delhi's interest in competing with Beijing) and Vietnam,
have actually slowed if not halted the increase in defense spending to
divert resources to other priorities. My purpose here is not to
downplay military spending and acquisitions, but to put them in
proper perspective. National capabilities, though being built up, are
still relatively weak and inadequate in many states.

The Continuing Relevance of Alliance Strategies

Although South Korea and Taiwan have become stronger, they cannot
address their security threats on their own. Alliance with and, in the
case of Taiwan, informal commitment from the United States continue
to be critical to their security strategies. Moreover, the U.S.
commitment to these countries is firm. Although the United States has
no formal

 Page 634
treaty commitment to defend Taiwan, it is opposed to a forceful
takeover by the PRC. That policy was made clear by the deployment
of two U.S. aircraft carriers in response to the 1996 Chinese missile
test firings designed to intimidate Taiwan during its first presidential
elections. Japan continues to attach great significance to its alliance
with the United States. Although the bilateral alliance suffered some
erosion in the 1980s and early 1990s, the U.S.-Japan security treaty
has since been reaffirmed and strengthened. If the China threat to
Japan becomes more substantial, the U.S.-Japan security treaty may
become even stronger.
The strategy of alliance, however, is not a viable option for all states,
at least not to the same degree as that available to South Korea, Japan,
and Taiwan. Pakistan, for example, which seeks to counter the
perceived Indian threat through external balancing, has found it
difficult to maintain a strategic relationship with the United States in
the post-Cold War era (see Chapter 10). Because India is a common
concern in both countries, Islamabad has been relatively more
successful in maintaining strategic relations with Beijing. But even
here, China has sought to improve relations with India and has
adopted a more balanced position in the Indo-Pakistani conflict. In
general it seeks to avoid involvement in South Asian disputes. In
Southeast Asia, Thailand and the Philippines continue to have formal
bilateral security treaties with the United States, but the vitality of
those treaties is much eroded when compared to earlier periods. In
Southeast Asia, the United States suffers a credibility gap. Malaysia
and Singapore, along with the United Kingdom, Australia, and New
Zealand, continue to be members of the Five Power Defence
Arrangements. But this is a consultative arrangement and not critical
to the security of Malaysia or Singapore.
Among the major powers, except for Japan, the strategy of alliance is
not an option. India is concerned with the growing power of China but
it has no credible ally or strategic partner. It has attempted, not very
successfully, to maintain strategic relations with Russia, and has also
improved relations with the United States (though New Delhi remains
wary of Washington). China, concerned with American hegemony in
East Asia, has entered into a strategic partnership with Russia. But
such partnerships are weak and cannot be termed as alliances or even
alignments. There are also several tension points in the bilateral
relations among these countries. Rather than enter into alliance
arrangements, the major powers, by and large, have attempted to
improve relations with one another including their perceived
adversaries. The nonavailability or distrust of alliance arrangements
combined with the relative weaknesses of national capabilities, the
general apprehension in the region about

 Page 635
uncertainty and unpredictability, and the ideational changed noted
earlier have fueled Asian interest in cooperative security.
The Emergence of Cooperative Security
Regional security cooperation is new to Asia. As noted in Chapter 2,
multilateral cooperation and international law were not features of the
historic "interstate" systems in Asia. Regional security cooperation
began in Southeast Asia, where it is most advanced, but such efforts
are also under way in South Asia and indeed throughout the Asia-
Pacific region.
Southeast Asia: The Broadening and Deepening of Cooperation
The initial purpose of cooperation in Southeast Asia was not to
supplant the alliance arrangements of member countries but to
supplement them.

15 Because of this and other considerations there has been no effort to

develop collective security or collective self-defense schemes in
Southeast Asia. Rather, cooperation has been directed toward building
trust and confidence among member states, developing principles and
norms to govern their interaction, preventing disputes from
degenerating into open hostilities, developing mechanisms for pacific
settlement of disputes, and bolstering the collective political and
diplomatic weight of the ASEAN countries. ASEAN's success in
some of these efforts has transformed it into a partial pluralistic
security community. In the post-Cold War era ASEAN's membership
has broadened to include Vietnam (1995), Myanmar (1997), and Laos
(1997).16 ASEAN has also committed itself to realizing the ASEAN
Free Trade Area (AFTA) agreement by 2003. Although
considerations of national interest were initially the driving force
behind ASEAN, the collective interests of ASEAN have begun to
figure significantly in the thinking of the member countries. ASEAN
identity and ASEAN interests remain subservient to the national
identity and interests of member states, however, and this is unlikely
to change soon. Nevertheless, cooperation through ASEAN has
become an important component of the security strategies of the
ASEAN states. ASEAN's past successes have also enabled it to
assume a lead role in the development of security cooperation at the
broader regional level through the ASEAN Regional Forum.

Asia-Pacific: The Beginning of Multilateral Security Cooperation

With the termination of the Cold War, cooperative security has begun
to command broader attention in the Asia-Pacific region. Interest in
cooperative security is not uniform, however: the ASEAN states and
Japan are more enthusiastic than the others. ASEAN's interest in

 Page 636
regional security cooperation is driven by several considerations: the
growing nexus between Northeast and Southeast Asia and a
recognition that Southeast Asian security cannot be addressed in
isolation; concern over the fluidity and uncertainty in the regional
strategic environment produced by the ongoing power transition; a
desire to constrain and constructively engage the major powers
(especially China); the weakening and, in some cases, collapse of
Cold War regional security arrangements; and a wish not only to be
involved but to take a lead role in building a new regional security
architecture. Tokyo's interest in Asia-Pacific security cooperation has
several purposes: to ensure the continued engagement of the United
States in Asia; to participate more actively in the management of
regional security; to secure domestic and international legitimacy for a
greater Japanese political and security role; to broaden the choice of
policy platforms available to Japan; and to engage and constrain the
behavior of China.
Beijing's initial reaction to the ASEAN-Japan initiative on regional
security cooperation was lukewarm. Although eager to participate in
multilateral economic institutions, which it views as beneficial, China
is generally suspicious of multilateral security arrangements. Fearing
institutional ''taming" and "entrapment," Beijing prefers the bilateral
approach: such a strategy favors China in relation to most Asian states
and also prevents the other states from ganging up against it.
Nevertheless, several considerationsthe fear of being left out, the
desire to prevent such a forum from developing into an anti-China
organization, the prospect of regulating the pace and agenda of the
forum from inside, and considerations relating to its international
image, prestige, and legitimacyeventually led to Chinese participation
in regional security cooperation. Such participation, however, was
characterized by caution. Over time, perceiving the benefits of such
cooperation (constraining the United States, for example), China has
become more supportive of Asia-Pacific security cooperation.
For several reasons, the United States under the Bush administration
was opposed to regional security cooperation. Washington preferred
the hub-and-spoke approach to security in Asia, with Washington, of
course, as the hub (Baker 1991-92). Only under the Clinton
administration did U.S. policy change. Not wishing to be seen as the
sole opponent of an Asian initiative, and persuaded that regional
cooperation can serve American national interests by setting the rules
of the road in an environment where the United States is still the
predominant power, and also wishing to satisfy Tokyo, Washington
supported the ASEAN-Japan initiative that led to the formation of the
ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in July 1994 (Lord 1993).

 Page 637
These mixed motiveslargely rationalisthave shaped the purpose,
scope, and pace of regional security cooperation, which are all very
modest. According to the chairman's statement issued after the
inaugural meeting, the ARF is characterized as a high-level
consultative forum to "foster the habit of constructive dialogue and
consultation on political and security issues of common interest" and
to make significant contributions toward "confidence-building and
preventive diplomacy in the Asia-Pacific region" (ASEAN Regional
Forum 1994). The agenda of the ARF includes confidence-building
(essentially transparency) measures, preventive diplomacy,
nonproliferation and arms control, peacekeeping, and the prevention
of maritime disaster. Even in these areas, the targets, guided by the
lowest common denominator, are modest and to be achieved gradually
over a period of five to ten years. There is no grand scheme such as a
projected regional community, a concert of powers, a collective
security umbrella, or collective self-defense arrangements. There is
not even a mechanism to resolve outstanding disputes.
The Role of Cooperative Security
In the spectrum of conflict management strategies, cooperative
security is assigned a significant role only in conflict prevention
among participating states.

17 Conflict containment and conflict termination are to be handled

outside the ARF by appropriate states and arrangements. The ARF
may, however, legitimate certain initiatives by endorsing themas, for
example, the informal multilateral workshop on the conflicting claims
in the South China Sea, organized by Indonesia. The primary purpose
of the ARF, however, is to contribute to conflict prevention by
facilitating communications, providing information, increasing
transparency, and reducing uncertainty. Even in that realm, its
immediate goal is not to institute far-reaching security regimes but to
help create a normative context that can lead to the emergence of such
regimes in the future.

For the present, at least, cooperative security will be just one

component in the national security strategies of Asian states. It will
supplement rather than supplant national capabilities and alliances.
Certainly the major powers (the United States, China, and now
increasingly Japan) view it as an adjunct to their national capabilities
and alliance systems. This, however, does not mean it is unimportant.
As noted in Chapter 2, analysts often highlight the weakness of Asian
regional institutions in addressing regional security problems. Often
these weaknesses are emphasized in comparison with European
institutions. Such a comparison is misplaced. The comparison should
be with the Asia of the past, not with Europe. On that basis there is a
relative

 Page 638
abundance of formal institutions and an even greater abundance of
nongovernmental institutions in Asia today than even a decade or two
ago. Asia has in fact come quite a long way in a short time. Gradually,
the regional institutional context is likely to become more dense and
more consequential for the international behavior of states.
The national security strategies of Asian states, then, are becoming
broader and more complex. Although strategies of self-help are still
important, the norm of cooperative security is gaining ground. In
addition to bilateral and multilateral cooperation focused directly on
security, increased economic interaction and cooperation are also
being encouraged in the belief that growing economic
interdependence will strengthen ties, improve the material welfare of
people in the affected areas, and generally help to ameliorate
historical animosities and reduce traditional security concerns.
Examples of economic cooperation with a strategic purpose include
the various growth-triangle initiatives in Southeast Asia, the
nordpolitik of South Korea, and the economic policy of Taiwan
toward China.

18 The possible downside of such cooperationtension issuing from

considerations of relative gain, vulnerability issuing from increased
dependenceis recognized. But the hope, at least for now, is that the
benefits will outweigh the costs.

The Dynamic Nature of Asian Security Practice

The final feature of Asian security practice is its dynamic nature.
Security practice in Asian states has undergone substantial changes in
the course of the last three or four decades. Changes have occurred in
the referent, the scope, and the approach to security. In countries such
as Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia (less Sabah), Singapore, and
Bangladesh, where the identity of the nation has become consolidated
in comparison to the early postindependence period, the nation-state,
notwithstanding the grievances on the peripheries, has become more
acceptable as the security referent for the vast majority of people. In
most of these states there has been a noticeable shift in their security
concerns from the domestic to the international level. In other states
like Sri Lanka, contestation over national identity has become more
severe, and ethnonationalism is on the rise among the Tibetans and
Uigurs in China. The Indian case is complex. The vast majority of
people who reside within the national boundary have come to accept
themselves as part of the Indian nation. A substantial segment of the
Muslim Kashmiris, however, continue to resist integration, and their
struggle has become more intense in the 1990s. For them, the Indian
nation has progressively ceased to be the security referent. The
identity of the Sikhs

 Page 639
as part of the Indian nation, earlier taken for granted, became
problematic in the 1980s. The rise of Hindu fundamentalism may
undermine the allegiance of the minority Muslim community to the
Indian nation. In these three states (Sri Lanka, India, and China),
concern with internal security has become more prominent (see
Chapters 11, 4, and 3, respectively).
The values to be protected under the label of security have also altered
over time. Some of the changes have been due to changes in political
and economic systems, as well as in national goals and priorities. In
countries like South Korea and Taiwan whose democratic transitions
are being consolidated, regime and government have become distinct.
Although protection of the democratic regime remains a core concern
in South Korea and Taiwan, the perceived threat to that objective no
longer comes from within but from other states. Further, the survival
of particular governments in these countries is no longer a national
security concern. In other countries, such as China, Vietnam, Burma,
and Indonesia, however, the legitimacy of political systems has
weakened for several reasons: the collapse of communism as the basis
for political and economic organization; generational changes in
leadership; achievement of projected national goals (liberation and
unification in Vietnam); poor economic performance (Burma and
Vietnam); the growing salience of norms related to human rights and
democracy; or the corruption, economic inequality, and abuse of
power that is prevalent in several of these countries. Weakening of
political legitimacy has been accompanied by a rising concern with
regime and government security. In China and Vietnam, for example,
regime and government security were not a major concern from the
1950s through the 1970s. Beginning in the 1980s, however, they
became key security concerns for the central decision makers.
The security agenda of states has been affected by changes in national
priorities. Many Asian leaders, for example, have articulated the goal
of modernizing their states. In pursuit of that goal some, such as
China, India, and Vietnam, have launched major reform programs
whereas others have promoted economic growth and technological
development through vision statements like "Malaysia 2020," or
"Singapore 21." The net result has been an elevation of economic
matters in the national agenda. Except for the few states that are
confronted with acute external threats, there is now no strict hierarchy
among issues. Even in a country like South Korea whose political
survival is under challenge, the public has begun to identify other
issuessocial and political stability, trade conflicts, lack of international
competitiveness, economic sovereigntyas key security concerns

 Page 640
surpassing the threat posed by North Korea (see Chapter 7). Resource
allocation for defense in South Korea as a percentage of GDP has also
declined over the years.
Similarly, the Asian approach to international security has undergone
major changes. As observed in the preceding section, the emphasis
during the Cold War on alliance and alignment has given way to a
greater reliance on national capabilities. Asia has no history of
indigenous multilateral security cooperation. Nevertheless cooperative
security has become a key component of the national security
strategies of the ASEAN states. It is now also being explored in South
Asia and the broader Asia-Pacific region. Security through economic
cooperation is also emerging as a component of the Asian approach to
international security. Generally the Asian approach to international
security has become more complex and multilayered, deploying
multiple strategies and instruments.
Because nearly all Asian states are relatively new as modern nation-
states and are still in the midst of fundamental transitionseconomic,
political, and socioculturaland because the material and normative
structures affecting them are changing too, further shifts in their
security practice can be anticipated.
Asian Security Practice: Not Culturally Unique
The preceding five features that characterize security practice in Asia
are not unique to Asia. There are also significant differences in the
security behavior of the various Asian states. As such there is no one
distinct Asian security practice. The primacy of the state as the
security referent, its contested nature, the multiplicity of security
referents, and internal and international conflicts over identity,
legitimacy, autonomy, and territorial integrityall these features also
characterize the practice of security in Central and Eastern Europe,
Russia, the former Soviet Central Asian Republics, Africa, and Latin
America. Compared to the emphasis in the North Atlantic and Soviet
bloc countries on the military dimension during the Cold War, the
broad definition of security in Asia may have been distinctive, but this
is no longer the case. Now economic and sociocultural concerns also
inform the security thinking and behavior of Western decision makers.
And some Western academics argue the case for defining security
even more broadly than the way it is articulated by Asian elites and
scholars.
Moreover, the comprehensive definitions of security in Asia are not so
much a product of Asian cultures as a result of the nature and
circumstances of the political units. The comprehensive definitions of

 Page 641
security in the ASEAN states have their origins in the contested and
changing nature of the state in those countries as well as their
aspirations for development. Because national identity and political
legitimacy are contested issues, the problem of political survival in
these states goes beyond political independence and territorial
integrity to embrace protection of the ideas that underpin the political
organization of the nation and state, survival of the incumbent power
holders, preservation of national unity, and social and political
stability. These values can be endangered by nonmilitary threats as
well as military ones, and their safeguarding calls for political, legal,
economic, sociocultural, and military measures. A broad interpretation
of political survival, developmental goals, and recognition of the need
for multidimensional coping strategies explain the comprehensive
definitions of security in these states.
In the case of Japan, because of its lack of natural resources, economic
security has always been a high priority in modern times. In the
interwar period Japan sought to secure access to resources through
military conquest and the creation of a Greater East Asia Co-
prosperity sphere. In the 1970s, Japan's articulation of comprehensive
security was a response to changes in the international economic
environment Nixon's unilateral abrogation of the gold standard, the
steep oil price increases in 1973 and 1978and to its perception of a
decline in the power of its protector the United States, signaled by the
1969 Nixon Doctrine, Sino-American alignment, and Soviet-
American détente. The response was also conditioned by its post-
World War II culture of antimilitarism, which inhibits the
development of independent national military capabilities.
A comprehensive definition of security also seems to be characteristic
of countries (such as Japan and the initial ASEAN five) that are not
confronted with urgent international military threats. The shift in
Beijing's and later in Hanoi's articulation of security from a focus on
the military dimension to a broader definition coincided with their
reassessment of international threats and, more generally, with a view
of the international situation as favorable. The broad articulation is
also linked to a recognition of their economic weaknesses, the
declining legitimacy of their socialist systems, and concern over
government legitimacy. In states like North Korea, South Korea,
Taiwan, Pakistan, and India that face major external threats, the
military dimension continues to be critical in security thinking and
behavior, although even in these countries other concerns are
beginning to command a more prominent place on their national
security agendas.
Finally, the broad definition of security in Asia may be explained, in

 Page 642
part, as the outcome of a structural norm of comprehensive security.
Elites have been socialized to think that security must be viewed
broadly and that survival and prosperity requires all-around strength.
One of the first tasks of the ASEAN Regional Forum, for example,
was to affirm this belief and to initiate a study on the "comprehensive
concept of security, including its economic and social aspects, as it
pertains to the Asia-Pacific region" (ASEAN Regional Forum 1994).
It is evident then that the broad definition of security in Asia is due in
large part to the nature of Asian political units and their internal and
international circumstances. The same is true of the recent broader
definitions of security in the United States and Western European
states. A perception that the character and scale of economic change
may undermine those countries' domination of the international
political economy, among other concerns, underlies their broader
definition of security with added emphasis on economic security.
Sociocultural concerns (the impact of migration on identity, for
example) and environmental concerns have also contributed to the
broad definition of security in the West. Thus there is nothing
intrinsically Asian about a broad definition of security, although there
may be a distinctive content to such definitions in Asia.
Similarly, the Asian approach to international security is not far
different from that practiced in other parts of the world. Self-helpthat
is, national capabilities and alliancesare a key component of the Asian
approach. As noted earlier, national military capabilities are being
built up, and force has been used in the contemporary international
relations of Asian states, although it is possible to argue, as we do
later, that the role of force in Asia is changing. Historically, there is a
strong realpolitik tradition in Asia, in both the Sinic and Indic
systems. Japan, when it was a great power, used brute force in the
pursuit of its political and economic objectives. Though peace was not
precluded in the historic Asian systems, claims, such as that of
Michael Haas, that the traditional cultures of AsiaBuddhism,
Confucianism, Hinduism and Islam provide it with "a complex set of
norms of international relations in which peace was considered more
normal than war" (Haas 1989: 3), and that "war, by no means absent,
was engaged less often by Asians than by Europeans until the advent
of European imperialism" (1989: 1) appear to be not well founded if
not to misrepresent history. The accuracy of such claims and
counterclaims notwithstanding, it is difficult to refute the assertion
that self-help is a crucial part of the contemporary Asian approach to
security. Any formulation of the "Asian way" that omits this
component is suspect.
It is, however, possible to argue that the content of cooperative

 Page 643
security in Asia in terms of principles, purposes, and procedures is in
some ways quite distinct from its content in the North Atlantic region,
at least for the present. To begin with, Asian states do not envisage a
role for regional security cooperation in domestic conflicts. This
stance is a result of their strong emphasis on the principles of
sovereignty and noninterference in domestic affairs. For the present
they also do not envisage a role for regional security cooperation in
containment and settlement of international conflicts, especially if it
entails the collective application of force. The preference is for
bilateral negotiations and informal multilateral discussions, and for
more intractable problems, the deferment of conflict settlement to
future generations. Multilateral security cooperation is seen as
particularly useful in conflict prevention. Even then, the emphasis is
not on formal rules and procedures to regulate state behavior, such as
regulation of military competition through binding and verifiable arms
control agreements, but rather on creating trust and shared political
understandings and fostering mutually beneficial relationships (in the
economic and other realms) that will gradually ease threat
perceptions, reduce the urgency of the international security problem,
and in the long term contribute to the settlement or resolution of
specific conflicts.
The Asian approach is preeminently political, focused on building
trust and shared understandings, and in the process, shaping the
normative context or the metaregime, rather than on the immediate
regulation of state behavior through specific regimes.

19 Success at the meta level in building an international society is

expected over time to lead to the creation of specific regimes.20
Though it recognizes the importance of power, the Asian approach
eschews formal collective management of power. Thus, Asian states
emphasize political agreements on long-range goals, diversity and
equality, consensus-building and face-saving, informal networking
and the fostering of interpersonal relations, unilateral and voluntary
disclosures and concessions, incrementalism, negotiations, and focus
on noncontroversial areas, at least to begin with. This "Asian"
approachcommonly characterized as emphasizing process over
substancediffers from that of the West, which places a high premium
on concrete goals, immediate benefits, and binding agreements with
provisions for verification of compliance and arbitration of disputes.

This difference in approach is noticeable in the ARF and in APEC,

whose membership includes both Asian and Western states. Whereas
Asian leaders and bureaucrats value the various meetings among
heads of government, ministers, senior officials, and other
bureaucrats, both civilian and military, for the purposes identified
above, their American,

 Page 644
European, and Australian counterparts tend to decry them for not
producing concrete outcomes, arguing that these processes cannot be
sustained in the absence of specific binding agreements and tangible
benefits.
Haas (1989: 20-21) sees the "Asian way" as "a new form of statecraft"
that "goes beyond previous theories of international integration" and
posits a ''cultural theory of international cooperation." We would
argue that the contemporary Asian approach to cooperation can be
explained by the fact that Asian states are now in a formational phase
of an international society; that is, they are engaged in a process of
constructing the normative basis or consensual knowledge (principles
and norms) to govern the interaction of states in the region.
Historically, international society in Asia, when it existed, was
hierarchical. Such a form is not acceptable to the contemporary Asian
states, except possibly to the would-be hegemons of such a society.
Although they have embraced some Western principles, such as
sovereignty and territorial integrity, the Asian states resist the
adoption of the full range of Western norms and principles, especially
the recent developments that would limit sovereignty and open the
way for justified intervention.
In the absence of an acceptable historical basis to build on, mistrustful
of and reacting to the West's attempt to project its principles and
norms as universal, as well as the historically rooted distrust of each
other, and their efforts to consolidate the identity and structure of
political domination within their states, Asian governments are
seeking a normative framework that will take due account of their
domestic and international ideals and interests. Such a normative
framework would eventually also have to take account of power
realities and conflicts. Its construction will inevitably be a slow and
incremental process. ASEAN has had a fair measure of success in this
endeavor over the last 30 years. The process has just begun among the
Asia-Pacific states. This is a much larger grouping comprising an
even more diverse set of states in terms of histories, power
differentials, political systems, level of economic development, and
hence identities and interests. The process of forging a normative
framework among such a group of states will indeed be challenging
and is likely to be protracted.
Like the broad definition of security, several aspects of the Asian
approach to cooperative security may be explained in terms of the
nature of Asian political units, their histories, their current national
preoccupations, and their present international circumstances. The
preclusion of domestic conflicts from regional security agendas and
the emphasis on consensus-building, for example, can be explained in
terms of the premium the Asian states place on sovereignty and
noninterference in

 Page 645
domestic affairs, which in turn is linked to the history and nature of
the political units. Their preference for measures like voluntary and
unilateral concessions and disclosures may also be explained by their
determination to preserve autonomy. The emphasis on political
dialogue, incrementalism, and the deferment of conflict resolution to
future generations can be explained by the bitterness that characterizes
the recent history of Asia, a recognition of the limits and dangers
posed by that history, the absence of a tradition of multilateral
cooperation among sovereign states in Asia, and the consequent need
to develop a culture of cooperation that takes into account the
sensitivities of a diverse group of states. This suggests that the present
distinctiveness in the content of cooperative security in Asia is likely
to alter over time with change in the nature of the units and their
domestic and international situations.
Part Two: Explaining Asian Security Practice
In seeking to explain security practice in Asia we make two related
assertions. First, explanations of Asian security practice must
incorporate and where necessary integrate factors at the intrastate,
unit, and systemic levels. Second, both material and ideational factors
are necessary to explain the security concerns and behavior of Asian
states. Only a combination of these levels and factors can explain the
full range of the security practice of Asian states. The salience of each
level and set of factors will vary by country. The two claims are
strongly interrelated, but for the purpose of discussion they are dealt
with separately here. We begin with the first claim.
The Need to Consider Domestic, Unit-level, and International Factors
The states in Asia, except for Japan, are at once premodern and
modern, and some even incorporate elements of a postmodern state.

21 The type of state and the associated attributes have a crucial

bearing on the security thinking and behavior of Asian leaders. The
problematic construction as modern nation-states, for example, helps
to explain the contested nature of many Asian states as security
referents as well as the multiplicity of security referents in those
states. It also sheds light on the deep commitment of Asian leaders to
values like political independence, territorial integrity, national unity,
and political stabilitythe causes of nearly all internal conflicts and of
several international conflicts that focus on identity (China-Taiwan,
North-South Korea, India-Pakistan) and

 Page 646
accounts for the acuteness of some international threat perceptions
(Chinese and Vietnamese concern with the ideological threat from the
West, for example). The goals of economic modernization and
industrialization, and the growing integration of national economies
into the regional and global economies, by affecting the identities,
interests, and capabilities of states as well as the pattern and density of
their international interactions, help to explain changes in the scope of
security, in the nature and urgency of the security problem, and in the
approach to security.
Yet unit-level factors alone cannot fully explain the security practice
of Asian governments. Systemic constraints and opportunities, both
normative and material, are also important because they affect the
prospects for survival and the achievement of other goals like
economic prosperity and a safe and predictable international
environment. The declining urgency of the political survival problem
for most states including very small ones like Brunei, Singapore,
Bhutan, and the Maldives, for example, cannot be explained without
reference to the normative structuremutual respect for political
independence and territorial integrity, noninterference in internal
affairs, and nonuse of force to resolve disputeswhich is increasingly
favorable to the survival and strengthening of existing states. These
norms may be violated, but not with impunity, as demonstrated by the
Vietnamese experience in Cambodia. Vietnamese military invasion
and occupation was strongly resisted by the ASEAN states on the
basis that Vietnam had violated cardinal principles of international
relations. Though it was not the only consideration, Vietnam's blatant
violation of accepted norms was a key factor in mobilizing and
sustaining world interest and opinion over a prolonged period, and
denying international legitimacy to the Vietnamese occupation.
Eventually Vietnam was compelled to withdraw from Cambodia.
22

Similarly, the material structure is crucial in explaining some security

concerns. The general apprehension over regional security as well as
some of the specific concerns of states, including major ones like
China and Japan, cannot be explained without reference to recent
changes in the distribution of power. In the absence of the Soviet
balance, China is increasingly wary of American hegemony. This
concern has become more acute following the deployment of two U.S.
carrier battle groups in the vicinity of Taiwan in response to the PRC's
military exercises and missile firings in March 1996, and the
reaffirmation of the U.S.-Japan security treaty in the following month.
Beijing has come to view the U.S.-Japan alliance as enhancing and
entrenching American dominance in East Asia, and also as increasing
the security

 Page 647
profile of Japan and facilitating its transition to the status of a normal
power. The rise of China is a cause of apprehension in Japan and
several other Asian states. The acuteness of such concerns, however,
as well as the responses, are not uniform. As explained later, they
have been shaped by other material and social factors at the unit level.
Further, some of the security concerns of Asian states span more than
one level. The Kashmir conflict, for example, is an internal conflict
between the Indian political center and periphery, as well as an
international conflict between India and Pakistan that at various times
has involved external powers including the United States, China, and
the Soviet Union. The acuteness of the Chinese perception of the
"threat of peaceful evolution from the West" is connected to and has
fluctuated with the intensity of the domestic challenge to the
legitimacy of communist rule. In these and other cases, explanations
of security practice must integrate intrastate, unit-level, and
international structural factors. Undue emphasis on any one levelas for
example in weak-state analysis and neorealism, which privilege the
intrastate and international levels, respectivelywill be limited in their
ability to explain Asian security behavior and may also be misleading.
Limitations of the "Weak State" Analysis
According to Barry Buzan, whose influential People, States and Fear
(1983) popularized the concept of weak states in the study of Third
World security, the behavior of these states, whose primary security
concerns are internal, "can be understood better in terms of individual
and sub-group security than in terms of national security" (p. 69).
According to Mohammed Ayoob (1995), although the security
problematic of Third World states has domestic, regional, and global
dimensions, the "primary layer that flavors the entire cake is the
domestic one" (p. 189). Brian Job (1992a) goes further: he argues that
the traditional international security dilemma does not apply to the
typical Third World state (pp. 17-18). According to him, "internal
threats to and from the regime in power, rather than externally
motivated threats to existence of the nation-state unit," are the primary
if not the exclusive security concern of Third World states (p. 18).
Although all three acknowledge that the Third World encompasses a
wide variety of states, their analyses nevertheless proceed on the basis
of the typical Third World statewhich is closer to a failed state than
the average Third World state, at least in Asia. Buzan, Ayoob, Job,
and others classify Asian states (except Japan) as Third World or
weak states. Although most of the Asian countries are weak on one or
more attributes of modern statehood, they are far from the
prototypical Third World

 Page 648
state as described by these analysts. Even those states (Bangladesh,
Cambodia, Burma, Laos) that may approximate the typical weak state
are not weak on all attributes of modern statehood. Bangladesh and
Cambodia, for example, are weak in terms of political institutions and
state capabilities, but strong as ethnic nations. This raises more
general questions: how to define a weak state without being
tautological, what level of weakness is necessary to qualify a state as
weak, and how to deal with states like China, India, and Vietnam that
are weak on some counts and strong on others.
A second limitation of weak-state analysis in explaining Asian
security practice is that Asian states are concerned not only with
internal threats but also with international threats. The two are often
connected, but international threats are not merely an extension of
internal vulnerabilities. The international security concerns and the
nuclear behavior of China, India, Pakistan, and North Korea, for
example, cannot be explained solely or even primarily in terms of
internal security issues. Perceptions of a Chinese threat in Vietnam,
Taiwan, India, and the Philippines, or perceptions of a Vietnamese
threat in Thailand and Cambodia, are not a consequence of their
weakness as states (though such weakness may aggravate the intensity
of threat perception). And although internal factors figure in the
mutual threat perceptions of India and Pakistan, they are not the sole
or even the primary source of conflict between the two countries.
Conflict over Kashmir and historical enmityintensified by the huge
difference in capabilitiesdrive the external threat perceptions of those
states. Contrary to Job's claim, the international security dilemma is in
some cases even more relevant to Asian states than it is to the so-
called strong states of the North Atlantic region.
A third limitation of the weak-state idea is its inability to
accommodate change in one or more attributes of statehood.
Consequently it obscures the substantial strengthening, over the last
three or four decades, of the nation's identity, the capacities of state
institutions, and the governmental monopoly of force in many Asian
countries. By the definitions advanced by Buzan, Ayoob, and Job, the
states in East and Southeast Asia would still be classified as weak
states. Yet the present situation in these states, compared to the 1950s
and early 1960s, is vastly different.
The idea of the weak state, though it may have some limited analytic
value, does not capture the practice of security in most Asian states.
Asian states do not approximate the typical weak state. Although
internal contestations over identity and legitimacy affect their
international security behavior, that behavior is driven by other
considerations as well,

 Page 649
including the traditional interests of sovereign states and the
constraints and opportunities issuing from international structure. The
analysis of Asian security must accord due weight to both internal and
international imperatives as well as to their interaction. Care must be
taken not to skew analysis in favor of internal dynamics, as has
commonly been done by analysts of Third World security, or in favor
of the international material structure, as in neorealist analysis.
Limitations of the Neorealist Analysis
A first read might suggest that the realist paradigm effectively
captures the Asian practice of security. Sovereign nation-states
populate Asia; their governments claim to be the principal and
legitimate actors in domestic and international politics; suspicion and
competition characterize the interaction of Asian governments;
international institutions are in a nascent phase and in short supply;
and national military power and alliances appear to form the bedrock
of national and regional security policies. Acceptance of these features
at face value has led many an analyst to favor the realist lens in
analyzing Asian security (Friedberg 1996; Betts 1993-94; Dibb 1995;
Waltz 1993; Buzan and Segal 1994; Roy 1996). Although it is
certainly relevant, an exclusive reliance on international material
structure to explain Asian security suffers several shortcomings.
A major limitation of neorealist analysis of Asian security is its
neglect of the domestic level, which flows from neorealism's
assumption of a cohesive and sovereign state. In Asia, as noted earlier,
the state in most cases is deeply problematic. Similarly, although there
is a deep attachment to the principle of sovereignty, many states do
not have the capacity to enforce it both internally and internationally.
The political constructions and actors that neorealism takes for
granted are in fact contested in many cases and also in a state of flux.
Instead of being assumed, therefore, they must be problematized and
investigated. Moreover, structural realism cannot accommodate the
historical dimension or the aspirations of actors, such as nation-and
state-building and the development of international society, that are
not immediately related to power. Such factors, however, are crucial
to the security thinking and behavior of Asian governments and must
therefore feature in their explanation. Because of these shortcomings,
neorealist analyses of Asian security cannot explain the contested
nature of security referents and internal security concerns; can only
partly explain the international security concerns of governments; and
are unable to explain the nonconforming behavior of a country like
Japan, for example, except as an aberration or a lag.

 Page 650
Whereas some realists hold to the position that internal security is not
a proper concern of security studies (Morgan 1992), others like Barry
Posen (1993) have attempted to explain the internal security problem
(i.e., ethnic conflict) in terms of the realist security dilemma.
Although this effort addresses a neglected level in neorealist analysis,
Posen's explanation still suffers at least two shortcomings. First, it
does not explore and explain what leads to the collapse of the imperial
regime that creates the situation of "anarchy" that is his starting point.
Second, the struggle for power, though important, cannot by itself
explain internal conflicts. The inclusion of ideational factors will help
overcome these shortcomings and provide a more complete
explanation of internal security problems. The salience of ideational
factors in explaining Asian security is the subject of the next section,
but for the sake of completeness we deal here with its importance in
explaining internal conflicts.
As noted in earlier discussion, because of the deep or strong
normative and material interests at stake, the construction of national
identity in Asian societies, as elsewhere, has been intensely contested
and has frequently led to civil strife and protracted armed conflict, as
in Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Burma, Thailand,
Indonesia, the Philippines, and China. Such conflicts over identity
often embody conflicts about material interests and struggles for
power, but they cannot be reduced to these considerations alone.
Often the interplay among the factors is a complex one, and their
relative salience is subject to change over time.
In the case of Sri Lanka, for example, the 1956 Sinhala-only policy
was meant to cancel the advantage of the Tamils and favor the non-
English-educated Sinhalese in the competition for public service
positions. But since then, the Sinhala majority has attempted to
construct a Sri Lankan national identity that revolves around
"Sinhalese greatness in antiquity, the Sinhala language, and the
Buddhist religion" (Pfaffenberger 1990: 251-52). The Tamil political
parties responded in the 1970s by demanding the formation of Tamil
Eelam (Eelam is the historic Tamil name for Sri Lanka) through the
union of the northern and eastern provinces. This was primarily a ploy
to force further concessions from the government and also to appease
Tamil youth organizations that were becoming impatient. Lack of
success in this effort and the progressive construction of Sri Lanka as
a Sinhala-Buddhist state were perceived to be not only materially
disadvantageous but threatening to the identity of the Tamils as Sri
Lankans and dangerous to the survival of Tamil language and culture.
At some point, the Tamils (the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
[LTTE]) reached the threshold where Tamil

 Page 651
and Sri Lankan identity as defined by the Sinhala majority became
incompatible, and secession seemed to be the only solution.
We do not represent the foregoing as the definitive account of the
ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka, but it is illustrative of our contention with
regard to the salience of identity and its complex interplay with
material interests and struggle for power in explaining internal
conflicts. In the Sri Lankan case, material considerations appear to
have been significant to begin with, although even then ethnicity or
racial group was the basis for government discrimination and minority
response. Progressively, material interests appear to have been
subsumed by considerations of group identity. The historical tracing
of the interplay of the various factors also explains the emergence and
development of the conflict, and provides a better analytic framework
than does the assumption of anarchy. Further, the domestic context is
qualitatively different from the international anarchy that produces the
security dilemma. In Sri Lanka, for example, a government does exist
but it is unacceptable to a segment of the population.
Although one might argue that identity has been mobilized to serve
the material interests of specific groups or individuals, such
mobilization has been possible only because "members of the society
have already made a preliminary identification with the solidarity
group through political socialization, internalizing the core beliefs,
sentiments and symbols" (Dittmer and Kim 1993: 240). Moreover,
material factors cannot explain why the contestants have been willing
not only to sacrifice economic gain but to endure prolonged, severe
hardship and loss of life for the sake of purely symbolic gains in the
realm of identity. Material explanations assume a certain cost-benefit
rationality that is not always evident in conflicts over the identity of
the nation, at least not during all stages of the conflict. That
assumption of material rationality also helps to account for the failure
of policies that seek to resolve such conflicts by offering material,
especially economic, incentives. Identity is not merely an
epiphenomenon. It has autonomous explanatory power. Consequently,
the issue of identity must be addressed in its own right by those
seeking settlement of such conflicts.
Contestation over the political ideology of the state is a second key
source of internal conflict in Asia. However, unlike the ethnic or
religious identities that lie at the heart of conflicts over the identity of
the nation, secular political ideologies (democracy, socialism) do not
command the same degree of passion. Further, the appeal of political
ideologies is often limited to the elite. The gravitation of masses of
people to ideological movements is based on their material
circumstances and self-interest. Rural support for the Communist
Party of the

 Page 652
Philippines (CPP) and the Communist Party of Thailand (CPT) in the
1960s and 1970s, for example, was due to poor economic
circumstances and the repressive rule of authoritarian governments in
Manila and Bangkok, not to any commitment to communist ideology.
Even among the elites, ideological belief cannot be dissociated from
the struggle to control state power. Often, an ideology is deployed as a
legitimating rationale. But not all behavior can be reduced to such
considerations, and political beliefs are not unimportant, as
demonstrated by the democracy uprisings in the Philippines, South
Korea, Thailand, Burma, and China. The point, however, is that
because the state is the repository of political power, the ideological
definition of the state determines who controls state power and its
material resources. Thus material considerations may be as important
as, and in some cases even more salient than, ideology in explaining
such conflicts.
Considerations of identity and legitimacy provide a deeper
understanding and a more thorough explanation of the differing
interests and the internal conflicts they generate. This leads to another
major limitation of neorealist analysis and to my second claim, which
is that both ideational and material factors are necessary to explain
Asian security practice.
The Need to Combine Material and Ideational Factors
The argument here is not that material factors are irrelevant. Indeed,
material interests and the international distribution of power are
among the key considerations that drive the security behavior of Asian
states and must therefore figure prominently in explanations of Asian
security practice. But material factors by themselves have limited
explanatory power. The shortcomings of the realist paradigm noted
earlier may be overcome by the inclusion of ideational factors such as
identity, sovereignty, history, political and strategic culture, and the
normative context. The salience of ideational factors in explaining
normative context. The salience of ideational factors in explaining
state behavior is an issue of contention between realists and
constructivists. Political realists like Morgenthau argue that "interest
defined as power," not ideas, drives the actions of statesmen, although
he accepts that the content of national interest depends on the
political-cultural context (Morgenthau 1978: 5). Neorealists argue that
anarchy and the international distribution of power are the key
determinants of state behavior (Waltz 1979). In both variants of
realism, but especially in neorealism, ideational and institutional
factors are epiphenomena of the distribution of power.

23 Constructivists, on the other hand, argue that ideas have greater

autonomy in explaining a state's behavior (Jepperson, Wendt, and

 Page 653
Katzenstein 1996). They posit a normative component to international
structure, defined in part by "shared understandings, expectations, or
knowledge," that informs the content of state identities and interests
and regulates behavior (Wendt 1995). Further, they argue that even
the meaning of material resources is socially derived and that features
of international politics like the security dilemma and self-help are
social constructions.
My position is closer to that of constructivism. The assertion that a
combination of material and ideational factors is necessary to explain
Asian security practice rests on the premise that ideas, although not
unrelated to power realities, are distinct and have greater autonomy
and consequences than allowed for by realists. Ideational factors may,
of course, be deployed to justify actions that are in fact motivated by
material considerations.

24 But for ideas to serve such purposes they must have a "living
presence." They must resonate with key groups as well as in the body
politic. Further, although power does play a crucial role, in the final
analysis the institutionalization of ideas rests on their acceptance
through practice by significant actors. Successful hegemonythe
production of a shared idea or normrests on a synthesis that fuses all
elements of the society into a "collective will," forging ideological
unity.25 Once an idea becomes established, it is less amenable to
exploitation at will. With greater autonomy, it will be consequential
for political behavior. The force of an idea may also erode as material
conditions change or other ideas emerge. The relationship between
ideational and material factors is therefore better conceptualized as
interactive and recursive: their relative salience is subject to change
over time, though often gradually. Ideational factors, as noted earlier,
are critical in explaining internal security practices in Asian states. In
this section we focus on the need to combine material and ideational
factors to explain the international security concerns and behavior of
Asian states. We begin with a brief review of some neorealist analyses
and predictions for Asian security behavior.

Neorealist Explanations
Neorealists have attempted to explain and predict the regional security
situation as well as the specific concerns and behavior of Asian states
primarily in terms of the distribution of power and the ongoing power
transition in the region. Aaron Friedberg (1996), for example, argues
that Asia is moving toward multipolarity and that the transition is
likely to be destabilizing. He foresees an Asia in which alignments are
"more fluid, complex, and less certain" and crises are more likely to
escalate to wars (pp. 26-29). In the long run, he argues, Asia "seems
far

 Page 654
more likely to be the cockpit of great power conflict'' (p. 5).
According to Richard Betts (1993-94), the future distribution of power
in Asia is uncertain, "up for grabs," potentially unstable, and likely to
lead to instability. Denny Roy (1996) asserts that the rise of China
poses a long-term danger to Asia-Pacific security because Beijing will
seek hegemony by force. China's growing power, it is argued, will
provoke a military buildup by Japan, "plunging Asia into a new cold
war." In his view the power transition in East Asia is certain to lead to
"serious political tensions between China and Japan...[and] military
conflict is likely if China's economic power continues to grow relative
to Japan's" (p. 129). Applying structural theory, Waltz (1993) argues
that Japanexisting in a contentious part of the world where there are or
will soon be several nuclear powers, with the American military
guarantee no longer reliable, and increasingly cognizant of the
vulnerabilities of its dependencyhas to worry about China (and the
United States), and that it will be "pressed to follow suit [acquire
nuclear capabilities] and increase its conventional abilities to protects
its interests abroad" (68-69). Waltz asserts that even if Japan may not
choose to, it will be forced by systemic pressures to become a great
power with all the associated attributes including military power.
While not without insight, these and other such assertions based on
power transition and structural theories alone are suspect for a number
of reasons. First, there is no consensus among realists on which
distributions of power are stabilizing or destabilizing. Similarly there
is no agreement on how ascending and descending powers will
behave. There is also the question of whether the theory of hegemonic
war applies in the nuclear era. Second, it is nearly impossible to
ascertain with any degree of certainty the actual distribution of power
at any given time during a transition such as that under way in Asia.
There are many imponderables, including domestic uncertainties.
Third, even if the distribution of power can be accurately ascertained,
structure rarely dictates a fixed course of action. Often it indicates a
range of options. The actual option chosen will be determined by
factors at the unit level. Neorealists have often stated that structure
can explain only patterns (that wars will recur in anarchy, for
example) and that the cause of a specific occurrence must be sought in
the first and second images (Waltz 1959). In practice, however, they
appear not to heed their own formulations. Neorealists continue to
make assertions about the security concerns and behavior of
individual countries based on the material structurepredictions that
often, as in the case of Japan, have been wrong. Fourth, neorealist
analyses tend to conflate power with threat. Although power is a
significant factor, threat construction is informed by

 Page 655
other factors as well, and most of them are social. Stephen Walt's
(1987) emphasis on the balance of threat rather than balance of power
as the basis for alliance formation is a useful correction, but it
represents a substantial departure from neorealism in that it shifts the
basis of state behavior from capabilities to intentions and highlights
the significance of social factors in threat construction. The balance of
threat argument has not been prominent in neorealist analyses of
Asian security. Finally, the focus on international structure and power
transition obscures the other security concerns of Asian states.
I do not mean to argue that material capabilities are unimportant.
Clearly they are important. The increasing concern with China, for
example, is a function of its growing power. But that development
alone cannot explain the differences in perceptions of and responses to
the "China threat." Consideration of other factorsnorms, history,
identity, intereststhat bear upon the construction of security threats
will enable a more complete explanation of this and other such
developments, and more generally of the international security
situation in Asia. In this connection we advance three propositions.
First, ideational factors together with material ones determine social
reality, and as that reality changes so will the nature and urgency of
the political survival problem. Here we argue that the realist nature of
international politics in Asia, especially during the Cold War, has
been a social construction and that it is undergoing significant change.
That change in turn is altering the nature, intensity, and urgency of the
political survival problem for most Asian states. The second
proposition is that ideational factors, by extending the causal chain
backward, provide a more complete explanation of the international
security concerns of Asian states. We substantiate this claim through a
discussion of the ideational basis of the three most acute conflicts in
AsiaChina versus Taiwan, North Korea versus South Korea, and India
versus Pakistanwhich, in realist accounts, are usually explained in
terms of the security dilemma. Our final proposition is that along with
material factors, ideational factors are critical in the explanation of
variations in state behavior both across countries and over time. They
also help explain state behavior that neorealism would consider an
anomaly. We support this third claim through a discussion first of the
differences among Asian states in their perception of and response to
the rise of China, and then of the factors that underlay the reappraisals
of security that occurred at different times in China, India, Japan, and
Vietnam.

 Page 656
The Social Construction and Changing Nature of Asian International
Politics
International politics in Asia, especially during the Cold War,
resembled that of the realist paradigm, and political survival was a key
problem for many Asian states. The realist features, however, were
not simply a consequence of anarchy or the distribution of power.
They were informed by social factors as well.
First, the commitment of Asian political elites to the realist core
values of political independence and territorial integrity is due in
substantial measure to their long experience, in some cases through
centuries, of colonial and imperial domination and their relatively
recent liberation from such domination. There is still considerable
apprehension among Asian elites. Some fear that the United States
and more generally the West seek to dominate Asia through other
meanssuch as forward military deployment, advocacy of justified
intervention, promotion of democracy and human rights as universal
values, promotion of environmental protection and universal labor
standards, insistence on international trading rules that may
undermine the comparative advantage of Asian countriesand wish to
deny the Asian states their rightful place in the region and the world.
Asian governments, individually and collectively, they argue, must
therefore be vigilant and must resolve to preserve their independence,
as well as their power, prestige, and influence in the international
system. The commitment to realist values is also informed by the
weakness of Asian states as modern nation-states. Sovereignty is a
key device for national political consolidationto ensure autonomy,
territorial integrity, and noninterference in internal affairsand for some
leaders to consolidate their hold on state power.
Second, many of the suspicions, tensions, and conflicts that
characterize contemporary Asian international politics are informed
by historical animosities such as those between China and Japan;
China and Vietnam; China and Russia; Japan and Russia; Japan and
Korea; Vietnam and Thailand; Vietnam and Cambodia; Thailand and
Cambodia; Thailand and Burma; and India (the Tamil kingdoms) and
Sri Lanka (the Sinhalese kingdoms). With the removal of the Cold
War strategic overlay, some of the traditional lines of amity and
enmity are resurfacing. The contemporary resonance of these
traditional animosities may be traced to their long duration and
bitterness, their contemporary deployment by governments to generate
support for certain policies or consolidate their control of state power,
or the existence of territorial and other disputes between traditional
adversaries. Distrust among Asian countries also stems from a lack of
knowledge about each other. Only with the

 Page 657
end of Cold War has there been much autonomous interaction among
Asian states. To reach a certain level of understanding will take time.
Finally, as observed in Chapter 2, there is a strong realpolitik tradition
in Asia. Power played a crucial role in the relations among kingdoms
in the historic Sinic, Indic, and Southeast Asian systems. This
strategic cultural tradition, reinforced by their experiences during the
Cold War, continues to inform security thinking and behavior
especially in China, India, Korea, Vietnam, and Thailand. The realist
nature of international politics in Asia is thus not merely a product of
anarchy or of the material structure. It is in considerable part an
outcome of past and present ideas and interactions.
A realist might argue that even if this claim is correct, it is of no
consequence because the outcome is still the same. It does matter,
however, for it implies that the nature of international politics in the
region can be altered. And Asian international politics is indeed
changing, though only gradually. It is becoming less Hobbesian;
principled and rule-governed behavior is on the increase; political
survival, though always important, is not precarious for most
countries; force, though still valued, is declining in utility; and finally,
although national self-help and alliances continue to be vital elements
of national security strategies, cooperation is becoming important.
These changes are most marked in Southeast Asia. They are less
marked in Northeast Asia and weakest in South Asia.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states
have accepted, and in large measure abide by, certain key principles in
the conduct of their international relations. These principles include
mutual respect for political independence, territorial integrity, and
national identity; noninterference in the internal affairs of one another;
peaceful settlement of disputes; renunciation of the threat or use of
force; and effective cooperation.
26 Unlike the early postindependence periodwhen Indonesia
challenged the very existence of Malaysia, when the Philippines
claimed the state of Sabah in Malaysia, when Singapore's survival was
precarious because of Malaysia and Indonesia's hostility, and when
Brunei feared absorption by MalaysiaASEAN member states now
recognize each other's claim to independence. They have a vested
interest in the survival and stability of fellow members. The concerns
of other ASEAN states and their consequences for the region now
figure in the formulation of national interests.

Although the provision in the 1976 Treaty of Amity and Cooperation

for pacific settlement of dispute remains unused, member states have
found other peaceful means to settle disputesor at least to prevent their
escalation to open hostilitiesand to ease tensions among themselves.
Agreement has recently been reached, for example, to refer

 Page 658
the disputes between Malaysia and Singapore over Pedra Branca
Island, and between Malaysia and Indonesia over Simpadan and
Ligitan Islands, to the International Court of Justice. Such action
would have been unthinkable even a decade ago. Other border
disputes and conflicting EEZ claims among the ASEAN states are the
subject of bilateral and multilateral negotiations. The use of force to
resolve disputes is declining as an option. Indeed, there has been no
recourse to force to resolve political disputes since the 1960s.
Southeast Asia, long characterized as a region of "turmoil, rebellion,
and conflict," the Balkans of Asia, and so forth, has since been
transformed into a region of peace, stability, and prosperity. Indeed in
recent times it has become fashionable for scholars to characterize
ASEAN as a partial pluralistic security community. This
transformation exemplifies my claim that international politics in Asia
is socially constructed and, moreover, is being altered. This is not to
say that competition and conflict have disappeared from the
international politics of Southeast Asia; only that a strong
international society, less prone to the arbitrary use of force, is
developing in the subregion. This accounts for the simultaneous
engagement of the Southeast Asian states in regional cooperation, the
development of national military capabilities, and continued
participation in alliance arrangements.
Though it is much less prominent, such change is not absent in the
region at large. Asia has enjoyed relative peace now for well over a
decade. There has been a considerable reduction in tensions among
the major powers. Apart from the two Koreas and Taiwan, the
existence of Asian countries as independent states is not
internationally contested. Their claims to independence are accepted
and recognized by other Asian countries and by the international
community. The numerous disputes among these countries do not
threaten their existence as independent political entities. Although
there have been infringements, Asian states have by and large
accepted the international norms of political independence, territorial
integrity, and nonintervention in domestic affairs. Indeed, these norms
have become key principles in the conduct of their international
relations.
The role of force is also changing in Asia. Despite the persistence of
flash points like the Korean, Taiwan, and Indo-Pakistani conflicts and
the associated military buildup, there has not been an international
war since 1979. Force might still be used to resolve these and other
disputes, but its role in Asia seems to be shifting from physical use to
deterrence, even in the case of those three volatile conflicts. Not only
is the physical, diplomatic, and moral cost of using force increasing,
but force has little utility for the attainment of the other high-priority
goals of economic

 Page 659
modernization and industrialization. Asian countries have a common
interest in maintaining a peaceful environment in which to achieve
these goals.
Although there is no history of multilateral cooperation in Asia, such
cooperation is gradually emergingas witnessed by the formation of the
forum for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the ASEAN
Regional Forum (ARF), and a multitude of informal
intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations. In addition to
these multilateral endeavors, most Asian countries have instituted
regular bilateral exchanges (such as those between China and Japan,
China and Russia, China and India, and China and Vietnam) at senior
levels to discuss and even settle outstanding issues. Many of these
efforts are still in an early stage and their impact is difficult to assess.
Nevertheless, the efforts at dialogue and cooperation are beginning to
affect the normative context in the region in terms of the principles
governing international behavior, including the legitimacy of force.
Finally, the economic dynamism of East and Southeast Asia is having
a dramatic impact on the agenda of international politics in Asia,
which has broadened to include economic and sociocultural concerns
in addition to traditional political and military security matters.
Economic modernization and political stability figure high on national
agendas. Indeed, several Asians now argue that geoeconomics has
replaced geopolitics as the primary substance of Asian and indeed
global international politics. Even if one does not subscribe to this
view, it is impossible to deny the prominence of economic, political,
and sociocultural concerns for Asian governments. Apart from the few
cases where political survival in its most basic form is an urgent
concern, there is no fixed hierarchy among political, economic, and
military-security issues.
The economic dynamism of East and Southeast Asia has also
dramatically altered the pattern and increased the density of political,
economic, and social interaction in the region. Since 1985, economic
interaction among East and Southeast Asian states has become much
more diverse and multilateralized, intra-Asian trade and investment
have grown dramatically, and a deep commitment to open economic
regionalism and global trading arrangements has emerged. The
convergence of economic identities, goals, and strategies is creating a
common basis for discourse among Asian states that in some cases is
healing a long history of antagonistic relations. Not only is economic
interdependence increasing the cost of using force, but institution-
building in the economic domain has modified the regional context.
Although the economic dynamism of East and Southeast Asia cuts
both

 Page 660
ways and may have destabilizing consequences as well (Alagappa
1997), the point is not that it will eliminate conflict altogether but that
it is contributing to a more complex pattern of international politics.
International politics in Asia is now characterized not only by
competition and conflict but also by cooperation and interdependence.
As the international politics of Asia becomes more multidimensional
and complex, the realist paradigm will be increasingly inadequate,
though not irrelevant, to explain the international interactions of Asian
states.
From the foregoing discussion it is evident that determination of the
nature and scope of the security problem derives from the collective
understanding among the Asian states, an understanding that is shaped
not only by the distribution of power but also by principles, norms,
and history. Collectively these factors inform the prospects for
survival and the construction of national interests and threats. During
the Cold War, Asian international politics and the collective
understanding of Asian political elites closely paralleled the realist
paradigm. Today, however, both are in the midst of change:
international politics in Asia is becoming less Hobbesian; principles
and rules are gradually gaining in significance; state interaction is
increasingly characterized by conflict as well as cooperation.
Cooperation and learning, particularly in Southeast Asia, have
contributed to a reconstitution of interests. The changing nature of
international politics is in turn altering the nature, content, and
urgency of the national security problem. With very few exceptions
basic political survival has ceased to be a pressing concern for most
states. Thus their international security concerns are more limited:
dispute over the demarcation of territorial boundaries and conflicting
territorial claims in the maritime space; ideological threats; and long-
range concerns about constraints upon autonomy. Even such
seemingly materialistic concerns, as we shall see, can be more fully
explained through the incorporation of ideational factors.
Ideational Factors and Explanation of International Conflicts
In this section we develop the proposition that ideational factors,
specifically considerations of identity and historical legacies, by
extending the causal chain backward, can complement realist
explanations and provide a deeper understanding of the international
conflicts and security concerns of Asian states. The three most acute
conflicts in Asia between Taiwan and China, between North and
South Korea, and between India and Pakistanare outcomes of
conflicting political imaginations that have become sharpened and
entrenched by military competition, both local and global. Admittedly
such competitions have created their own fears, mistrust, and
dynamics. But it is important to

 Page 661
note that although local power differentials and the international
material structure have sharpened the survival concerns of these states
and sustained the associated conflicts, they did not produce them in
the first place. Threat construction is a product of the interplay of
capabilities and intentions. As will become evident from the
discussion that follows, the perception of intentions is strongly
influenced by ideational factors. We begin with the survival conflicts
confronting divided nation-states.
Conflict Between Divided Nation-States
Identity is the underlying cause of the conflict between China and
Taiwan, which had its genesis in the civil war between the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese Nationalists (KMT). In the
post-civil war period, both the CCP and the KMT were committed to
the idea of "one China." Their dispute was over the ideological
identity of the Chinese state as well as the title to rule China. The
conflict was intensified and perpetuated by the global ideological and
geopolitical competition, especially the U.S. support of Taiwan. In
time the conflict evolved from a question of state ideology and regime
security to one of Taiwan's national identity: does Taiwan have a
national identity distinct from that of China, and does it have the right
to exist as a separate state? For Beijing, Taiwan is a province of
China. Its recovery (along with the recovery of Hong Kong in 1997
and Macao in 1999) is viewed by the CCP as vital for the restoration
of Chinese unity, strength, and dignity, which were severely damaged
by the imperial ambitions of the West and Japan. Taipei, no longer
claiming to represent all of China but still identifying Taiwan as part
of the Chinese nation, now seeks separate statehood for Taiwan.

27 Unification with the mainland remains the declared policy, but it is

posited as a long-term goal to be achieved in phases through mutual
agreement. At the popular level, however, there is substantial support
for the ideas of a distinct Taiwanese identity and an independent
Taiwan. Democratization in Taiwan has further sharpened the identity
dimension of the conflict as well as the mutual threat perceptions of
Taipei and Beijing. For Taipei, the Chinese goal of national unity
challenges its very existence as an independent democratic state. For
Beijing, democratization and Taiwan's drive for international
recognition challenge the unity of the Chinese nation and recovery of
national pridekey goals of the CCP as well as key pillars of its
legitimacy claim. These threat perceptions, as observed by Roger Cliff
(Chapter 8), cannot be explained in realist terms. Conflicting ideas
about identity, not the realities of power, underlie the threat
constructions of both these countries. Chinese power and U.S. support
for Taiwan, however, sharpen the conflict.

 Page 662
The origins of the Korean conflict are a matter of debate. Some trace
it to the geopolitical competition between the Soviet Union and the
United States. Although the Soviet role in the origin of the conflict is
not clear, there is little doubt that the United States acted on the basis
of its containment policy, which was extended to Asia following
North Korea's attack on South Korea (Gaddis 1982: 89-126). Others
have suggested that the origins of the Korean conflict should be traced
to internal developments in North and South Korea as well as the
strong nationalism of Koreans and their desire for unification (Lach
and Wehrle 1975: 89-92). Notwithstanding the competing accounts of
its origins, the intra-Korean dynamic focused on unification and the
political identity of the Korean nation-state now constitute the
mainstay of the conflict. Imbued with strong nationalism and rejecting
the perpetual division of the Korean nation, both North and South
Korea are committed to the idea of a single Korean nation-state.

28 They differ, however, on when and how unification should be

achieved as well as on the political identity of such a unified nation-
state. From the outset, the survival of their respective political systems
and incumbent governments was defined as essential to national
security in both North and South Korea. Cold War alignments and
military competition between North and South entrenched the
conflict, breeding mistrust and antagonism between the two Koreas.
Democratization in South Korea and the success of its capitalist model
of development have further sharpened the ideological differences
between the two Koreas. The dramatic increase in South Korea's
political, economic, and military power and the concurrent weakening
of North Korea on all three counts have also skewed the power
differentials in favor of South Korea, isolating the North, increasing
its insecurity, and pushing it to consider a nuclear option. The military
competition between North and South Korea continues to be a
symptom of the ideological conflict, not its cause. The military
dimension does, however, sharpen the conflict and increase its
urgency.

Realists explain the survival concerns of Taipei, Pyongyang, and

Seoul and the associated conflicts in terms of the security dilemma,
differences in material capabilities, military competition, and threats.
These factors are certainly not irrelevant, but such explanations often
miss the underlying causes of the conflicts and the social factors that
inform threat constructions. As we have seen, at base the security
concerns of these countries are driven by identity considerations:
Must the entire Chinese nation be unified under one sovereign
authority or can two sovereign Chinese states coexist? When and on
whose terms should the Korean nation be unified? And, what should
be the ideological basis for political organization of a unified Korean
nation-state?

 Page 663
Further, internal political considerations often conjoin these factors.
The effect of power realities, both local and international, has often
been to increase the intensity and urgency of the security concerns,
entrench them, and perpetuate the related conflicts. Ideational factors
not only offer a deeper understanding of the causes of such conflicts,
they also draw attention to the issues that must be addressed in
negotiating political settlements.
Conflict Between Post-Partition States
Like North and South Korea, India and Pakistan are caught in an
unending spiral of mistrust and conflict. At base the conflict is driven
by conflicting ideas about the identity of their nation-states, rival
national selfconceptions, and the vested interests of the power elite in
Pakistan (especially the military establishment). The dispute over
Kashmir is both symptom and cause of the Indo-Pakistani conflict.
Pakistan was imagined and constructed on the basis of the two-nation
theoryone for the majority Hindus and another for the minority
Muslims. But the rejection of that theory by most Hindu and some
Muslim leaders, the secular construction of India, and the predictions
of certain Indian leaders that Pakistan would disintegrate all created
insecurity in Pakistan. From the outset Pakistani leaders suspected that
India harbored ambitions of reintegrating Pakistan into India as soon
as the opportunity presented itself. Pakistan's concern for survival
became even more acute after its 1971 breakup, in which Indian
military intervention played a key role. The Kashmir problem is a
remnant of the partition of British India and is rooted in the
conflicting political imaginations of Pakistan and India. Based on the
two-nation theory, Islamabad claims that Kashmir should be part of
Pakistan. But the fact that Kashmir has a Muslim majority is of no
consequence for secular India, which, excluding Kashmir, is home to
more than 100 million Muslims. New Delhi fears that allowing
Kashmir to secede will set a dangerous precedent that may undermine
the idea of a secular, multiethnic, and multireligious India and
stimulate other secessionist demands (Ganguly and Bajpai 1994).
The Indo-Pakistani conflict is also driven by competing national
selfconceptions. India sees itself as the successor to the earlier Indian
empires (both Hindu and Muslim) as well as the British Raj.
Moreover, Indian leaders subscribe to the ideas of cultural and
geopolitical unity the basis for New Delhi's claim to regional
leadership and its conception of Indian national security in
subcontinental terms. This national selfconception is challenged by
Pakistan, which sees itself as an equal of India. Pakistan's claim is not
based on the distribution of power, of course, which has become even
more skewed in India's favor since 1971.

 Page 664
Rather, it is based on the idea of cosuccession of the British Raj as
well as Pakistan's desire for the mantle of greatness worn by the
earlier Muslim empires in India and beyond. Whereas India seeks to
marginalize the cultural differences between the two countries,
Pakistan seeks to marginalize the similarities, amplify the differences,
and attach itself to the Muslim world. Finally, insecurity resulting
from internal strife over identity and control of state power in
Pakistan, as well as the vested interests of the Pakistani military
establishment, sustain the conflict (see Chapter 10). India is a good
villain in the domestic politics of Pakistan (Khattak 1996).
One can see, then, that the conflict over Kashmir and more generally
the Indo-Pakistani conflict is not just a product of anarchy or a dispute
about territory. Jammu and Kashmir account for only 4 percent of
India's national territory and less than 1 percent of its population. The
crux of the conflict is over the political meaning of the territory for
national identity, the national self-conceptions of the two countries,
and the legitimacy of the Pakistani government. The military
competition between the two countries is a reflection of all these
considerations. Altered power realities that now strongly favor India
have increased the acuteness of Pakistan's security concerns,
escalating mistrust and tension and pushing Islamabad to develop a
nuclear capability.
From the foregoing discussion it is evident that ideational factors are
critical to the explanation of the three most acute conflicts in Asia, all
of which are embedded in conflicting notions about the identity of
nations and states. Social factors can similarly help to explain the
intensity associated with threat perceptions among several other Asian
states. Historical legacy, for example, is a critical factor in explaining
the deep-seated distrust and suspicions among Vietnam, Cambodia,
Thailand, and Laos; among China, Japan, and the two Koreas;
between China and Vietnam; and among India and its neighbors.
Historical memories arouse intense nationalism that magnifies the
significance of power differentials or the material (economic and
strategic) worth of the territories in question. In all such cases material
explanations must be supplemented by ideational ones.
Ideational Factors and the Explanation of Variations in State Behavior
In this section we argue two points: first, although changes in the
material capabilities of a major state may precipitate reaction from
other states, the actual reaction will be conditioned by the specific
interests at stake, the normative considerations at the unit level, and
the historically derived intersubjective understandings among the
affected states.

 Page 665
Second, consideration of material and ideational factors at the unit
level can explain behavior that structural theory would label as
anomalous. In other words, what looks like abnormal behavior
through the lens of neorealism may be shown to be normal by the
constructivist approach. We develop these arguments first through a
discussion of the variations in the perceptions and responses of the
Asian states with respect to the rise of China and then by examining
the changes that have occurred in the security assessments of selected
states.
The ''China Threat": Variations in Perception and Response
Conflating power and threat, neorealist analyses have presented the
rise of China as a threat to regional peace and security and have
claimed that other major powers like Japan will seek to develop
counterweights to a rising power such as China and that it will
constitute a structural anomaly if Japan does not behave in this
manner. Though China's growing power is certainly a key factor, it
cannot by itself explain the differences among the Asian states in
terms of their estimations of the consequences of the rise of China and
their responses to that event.
Japan's perception of China is a complex one. Many among the
Japanese elite recognize the enormous cultural debt owed by Japan to
China as well as the act of Japanese colonialism in China and the
atrocities committed by Japanese troops in the early part of the
twentieth century. Along with the cultural debt and imperial guilt,
consideration of the potential for profit underlay the Japanese policy
of dialogue and engagement, which was designed to encourage
Beijing to become a constructive force for the peace and prosperity of
the East Asia region. In line with this policy, Tokyo allocated a
substantial part of its official development assistance for China and, in
the post-Tiananmen period, adopted a softer line (compared to its G-7
partners) toward China. Japan was not unduly concerned about the
rapid growth of the Chinese economy for the first decade of that
expansion. Instead, a major concern was the possibility of internal
turmoil in China and the perceived negative consequences for Japan.
The Japanese perception of China, however, has begun to change in
the course of the last few years. The change is due not to the rise of
Chinese power per se but to the perceived undesirable behavior of that
country, specifically in relation to the Senkakus and the disputed
Paracels and Spratlys in the South China Sea, Chinese missile firings
in 1996 to intimidate Taiwan, and the continuation of Chinese nuclear
testing, despite censures and appeals from the world community
including Japan, until the formal signing of the Comprehensive Test
Ban Treaty. Some in Japan now believe that China is behaving in the

 Page 666
classic realist mode. This changing perception may be interpreted by
realists as supporting their claim that the dramatic surge in China's
power has provoked security concerns in Japan. However, it is not the
growth in power by itself but the purposes for which that power has
and may be deployed that informs the changing perception. In any
case, Japan still does not perceive any direct military threat from a
rising China. Apart from the Senkaku Islands, Japan has no specific
dispute with China. Its apprehension, rather, is that in the long term
China may seek to dominate East Asia and thereby constrain Japanese
freedom of action in the region.
Although the changing Japanese perception of China may lend some
weight to realist analyses, Japan's international security behavior is
still far from conformance with realist predictions. Despite its
possession of the necessary demographic, economic, and
technological capabilities for more than two decades now, and the
experience of intense friction in its bilateral economic relations with
the United States in the 1980s, Tokyo has not developed the necessary
attributes of a stand-alone great power in the realist tradition as had
been predicted by realists. Instead of building up its military
capability, with the end of the Cold War Japan is in fact scaling back
its defense expenditure and personnel. The New Taiko adopted in
November 1995 and the new guidelines for U.S.-Japan defense
cooperation unveiled in 1997 do seek to dramatically expand Japan's
security role. That role is still limited and remains within the scope of
the peace constitution. Further, instead of developing a counterweight
to the United States through internal and external balancing as
predicted by Waltz, Japan has sought to provide for its traditional
security concerns through the continuation and strengthening of its
bilateral security treaty with that country. The bilateral treaty still
serves the mutual interests of both the United States and Japan. The
economic conflicts that bedeviled the bilateral relationship in the
1980s have largely abated. A reinvigorated United States is much less
concerned about Japanese economic competition, while Japan,
suffering a deep recession for the last five years, is engaged in
reviving its economy through deregulation and steps to increase
domestic demand. For several reasons, both countries have a vested
interest in the continuation of the alliance, and it was reaffirmed in
April 1997.

29

With respect to China, Tokyo does not seek to engage in geopolitical

competition or to counter Beijing through internal balancing. To the
extent that it has security concerns focused on China, Tokyo seeks to
address them through persuasion and dialogue, as well as through the
U.S.-Japan security treaty, which may further strengthen if Beijing
behaves aggressively. Tokyo also seeks to influence Chinese behavior
by

 Page 667
engaging the latter in Asia-Pacific multilateral institutions. Despite its
enormous power potential, Tokyo appears to prefer bandwagoning, a
practice associated with small powers, rather than balancing, which
neorealists believe is encouraged by the system and is the proper
behavior for a state like Japan. This anomalous behavior on the part of
Japan can be explained only if due consideration is given to unit-level
normative factors that Waltz (1993) slights in his analysis. Although
he states that foreign policy behavior can be explained only by a
conjunction of external and internal conditions, in predicting the
future position and role of Japan Waltz privileges the former. In his
view, "when a country receives less attention and respect and gets its
way less often," then the internal inhibitions are likely to disappear
because "pride knows no nationality." The internal inhibitions that
Waltz treats lightly appear to be still strong in Japan. Moreover,
although Tokyo does desire greater international status and a larger
international role, it seeks to achieve them in the context of the U.S.-
Japan security treaty and through such means as higher-level
participation in the United Nations and regional multilateral forums,
as well as by focusing on nontraditional security areas. Tokyo does
not want to replay its earlier great-power role, at least not in terms of
content and style. Thus, instead of creating insecurity and pushing
Japan to become more like the United States or China, as structural
theory would have it, the internal and international inhibitions and
Japan's dependency and vulnerabilities appear to make continuation of
the alliance with the United states an attractive proposition. The
attraction between unlike poles appears to be greater than the pressure
to become a like but separate pole.
In contrast to Japan's, India's perception of and response to the rise of
China are more amenable to a realist explanation. India's concern with
China can be traced to its defeat in the 1962 war, their continuing
border dispute, New Delhi's national self-conception of India as the
preeminent power in South Asia, and Beijing's support for Islamabad,
which is perceived as designed to curtail New Delhi's subregional and
regional entitlements. The dramatic growth experienced by China
coupled with India's low growth rate have heightened India's long-
range concerns. More immediately, however, India has attempted to
improve relations with China, shelve the border dispute, and conclude
confidence-and security-building measures with China to reduce the
possibility of renewed border conflict. The purpose of those efforts
seems to be to reach some kind of accommodation with China while
buying time, as well as to limit Chinese support for Pakistan, with
which it has a serious and probably irreconcilable dispute. At the same
time India continues to maintain a credible defense, build up its
missile

 Page 668
capability, preserve its nuclear option, build up its economy, improve
relations with other neighbors, reinvigorate strategic relations with
Russia, and improve relations with the United States but without
seriously compromising its autonomy.
Among the smaller states, perceptions and responses span a wide
spectrum, and threat perception is the critical criterion. Of the
continental states, Taiwan and Vietnam strongly perceive a Chinese
threat. Taipei's perception of the China threat is the most acute, and it
bears upon Taiwan's survival as a separate sovereign state. Apart from
Taiwan, Vietnam is perhaps the most concerned with the China threat.
Hanoi's fear of Beijing is rooted in history as well as its recent
experiences, including the 1979 punitive Chinese attack and the
current territorial disputes with that country along its northern border
and in the South China Sea. North Korea, South Korea, and Thailand,
while cautious of China as a big power, do not perceive it as a threat.
In fact, they view China as a useful countervailing power: Thailand
vis-à-vis Vietnam; the two Koreas vis-à-vis Japan and Russia. Burma
and Pakistan view China, despite its growing power, as a friend and
ally: Rangoon because of Beijing's support for SLORC; Islamabad
because Chinese support is invaluable in dealing with the India threat.
Among the island states, Indonesia and Malaysia do perceive a China
threat but much less directly and intensely than do Taiwan and
Vietnam. Their perceptions are rooted in their internal circumstances
(the presence of economically powerful Chinese communities in both
countries), in a territorial dispute with China in the South China Sea in
the case of Malaysia, and in a historical reading of China as a country
ready to intervene in the domestic affairs of other countries and to use
force in international politics. These two countries had a much greater
fear of China from the 1950s through the 1970s, when China was
much weaker, than they do now, in a time when Chinese power is
increasing dramatically. This difference can be explained only by the
growing "resilience" of the two states and the altered orientation of
China, as well as the changed national priorities and outlook of their
leadership, particularly in the case of Malaysia. China is now viewed
as an economic opportunity and a force to be harnessed for stability
and prosperity in the region. In contrast, the Philippines did not view
China as a threat until the Chinese military action on the island of
Mischief Reef, which the former claims to be its own. Since then,
Manila has articulated a Chinese security threat both to the Philippines
and to the region (see Chapter 17).
Apart from the differing threat perceptions, the essentially geopolitical
construction of the China threat is moderated in several cases by the
benefits, actual and potential, of economic interaction with that
country

 Page 669
as well as the common ground most Asian states share with China vis-
à-vis the West on principles like noninterference in domestic affairs
and on norms relating to human rights and democratic governance.
When one considers the specific interests at stake, each country's
geopolitical position and level of development, and the relevant
ideational factors, a more complex picture of the China threat in the
region emerges than when one considers only the changes in relative
material capabilities.
As for their responses, the behavior of those states that perceive a
threat from China cannot be explained simply in terms of balancing or
bandwagoning. Taiwan and Vietnam do not seek to bandwagon with
China. Taiwan seeks to balance the threat from China by developing
its own capabilities as well as cultivating the commitment of the
United States. Vietnam is gradually beginning to develop its national
capabilities but it has no way to counter China through external
balancing. Consequently Hanoi has attempted to improve relations
with Beijing and to settle disputes through bilateral negotiations. It
also seeks to constrain China through participation in ASEAN and
other regional and global forums. Malaysia, Indonesia, the
Philippines, North Korea, South Korea, and Thailand have not sought
to balance China in any significant way. Their military efforts have
been devoted to developing general denial capabilities of their own.
Several of them have taken measures to facilitate continued United
States engagement in the region. But they have been unwilling to join
any effort that smacks of an "anti-China alliance."
Apart from the lack of a common threat perception, the necessary
power resources to balance China are in fact virtually absent in East
and Southeast Asia. Many in East and Southeast Asia believe that
China cannot be balanced. The United States is the only power that
can balance China, but there is considerable reluctance to follow the
American lead with respect to China. Aside from the incoherence of
the U.S. China policy, there is doubt as to whether the United States
will be a reliable partner, pursuing regional interests as opposed to
American national interests. Further, many disagree with certain
aspects of U.S. policy toward China, especially with respect to human
rights and democracy. The general belief is that Washington will
pursue its own agenda, which may at times be disadvantageous to
Asian states. Such doubts help to explain the ambivalent attitude of
the Asian states toward the United States: whereas they support
American engagement in Asia in general, they do not want to be
closely tied to the United States. This attitude has been a source of
frustration to American policy makers and analysts. Japan is the only
Asian country that now has the power to balance China, but it suffers
many constraints including dependence on

 Page 670
the United States for its security. Because the smaller countries do not
have the wherewithal to do so, they recognize that it is better for them
not to antagonize China. Thus they are unwilling to join any kind of
anti-China grouping.
At the same time no Asian country wants to appease China or to
become its satellite. The ASEAN members, for example, have
collectively confronted China on its use of force in the South China
Sea. They also seek to improve bilateral relations with China and to
engage China in multilateral institutions in the hope of regulating that
country's behavior through regionally accepted norms and collective
diplomatic action. More generally they are engaged in constructing a
normative order that inhibits the use of force and encourages pacific
settlement of disputes. The reluctance of these states to join an anti-
China effort could well diminish if the China threat becomes more
substantial. But China would have to behave aggressively toward
most of its neighborsespecially Japan, India, Vietnam, and
Indonesiato engender a common threat perception in the region.
Meanwhile, Asian states will continue to develop their own national
capabilities while pursuing bilateral and multilateral engagement of
China to make it a responsible player. Most will also continue to
support American engagement in the region, but without becoming
tied to the United States. Thus the response of the Asian states to the
rise of China is a complex one that includes elements of engagement,
balancing, and bandwagoning.
Explaining the Reappraisal of Security in Individual States
As is true of the explanation of the different perceptions and responses
to the rise of China, only a combination of material and ideational
factors at the unit and systemic levels can explain the changes in the
security assessments of individual states over time. We elaborate this
claim through a discussion of the factors that have contributed to the
changes that have occurred in the security orientations of China, India,
Japan, and Vietnam in the post-World War II period.
Chinese security has been reappraised and reconfigured on at least
three occasions: in the late 1960s through early 1970s, in the early
1980s, and again after the termination of the Cold War. Because the
international material structure remained bipolar during the first two
reappraisals, changes in security policy on those occasions cannot be
explained as structural in origin. The driving factors in the first
reappraisal were the ideological conflict with the Soviet Union and the
need to balance the Soviet threat by aligning with the United States.
The subsequent reappraisal in the early 1980s was due primarily to
differences in the national priorities and worldviews of Mao Zedong
and his successor,

 Page 671
Deng Xiaoping. Deng's emphasis on economic and scientific
modernization, and his assessment of the international environment as
relatively stable and benign, led to the discarding of Mao's theory
about the inevitability of war and to a broader definition of security
that emphasized economic, scientific, and technological
modernization and lowered the priority of military modernization. The
latest reassessment, which began in 1989-90, was stimulated by the
collapse of bipolarity and the termination of the Cold War. But the
current security concerns and approaches cannot be explained without
reference to certain domestic considerations as well, such as the
concern with regime security that became even more acute after the
Tiananmen incident and the collapse of communism in the Soviet
Union and Eastern Europe; the increased prominence of the People's
Liberation Army in Chinese domestic politics; the growing force of
nationalism; and the continuing high priority accorded to economic
modernization. Despite its predominant position, the United States
was initially not labeled by China as a hegemonic power. But since
the deployment of the two American aircraft carriers in the vicinity of
the Taiwan Straits in March 1996 and the subsequent reaffirmation of
the U.S.-Japan security treaty, Beijing has begun to view the United
States as a hegemonic power, and has sought to elevate its relations
with Russia to the level of strategic partnership as well as to
strengthen its good neighbor policy and become more active in
multilateral forums like the ARF to advance its policies.
In India, national security has been reappraised and reconfigured on
two occasionsafter 1962 and again in the early 1990s. In the first
instance there was no shift in the international or regional material
structure. The trigger was the devastating defeat in the border war
with China. The China threatthe gravity of which was further
reinforced during the second Indo-Pakistani war in 1965 when Beijing
threatened India with war on a second frontcontributed to a
compromise and to subordination of the idealist elements in Indian
foreign policy, which were basically rooted in Nehru's worldview and
his belief that power politics would inevitably lead to war. In the post-
1962 period, Indian security policy became more realist, especially
under Indira and Rajiv Gandhi, whose geopolitical vision included
Indian predominance in South Asia. Termination of bipolarity and the
Cold War has not affected India's threat perceptions or its policy
framework for dealing with its South Asian neighbors, although there
has been a tentative effort under the Gowda and Gujral governments
to reach agreements on several bilateral disputes with neighboring
countries. The loss of Soviet support has weakened New Delhi's
material capabilities in relation to the major powers, particularly
China. That weakening has stimulated India's

 Page 672
efforts to forge better relations with the United States and China. But
this redirection as well as the reduction in defense spending were also
due to India's dire economic circumstances that came to a head in
1991, to the gradual liberalization of the economy that followed, and
to the different worldview of Narasimha Rao. Unlike Nehru and
Indira Gandhi, who had a clear vision of the world and the region and
of India's place in them, Rao was more pragmatic and business-
oriented. Recognizing the weakness of the highly regulated Indian
economy and the dynamism of the East Asian countries, he laid the
groundwork for India's cooperative engagement with East and
Southeast Asian states in economic and political matters.
The stimulants for Japan's first reassessment of its postwar security
policy in the early 1970s were its own economic vulnerability to
international economic developments and the perceived decline in
power of the United States. The comprehensive definition of security
that resulted from that reappraisal and the continued reliance on the
security treaty with the United States were due to the strong pacifism
in Japan. A second reappraisal was undertaken after the end of the
Cold War. Despite the dramatic change in the structure and dynamics
of the international system, despite the generational change in
Japanese political leadership, and despite a public mood that is
generally supportive of a greater international role, Japanese security
policy has continued on its path of incremental change. The New
Taiko emphasizes the continued importance of the U.S.-Japan security
treaty and the need to strengthen it. The focus of the U.S.-Japan treaty,
according to some analysts, will shift from the defense of Japan to
regional security. Tokyo has also begun to explore multilateral
security cooperation as well as bilateral dialogue with Russia, China,
the two Koreas, and the Southeast Asian states. It also seeks to link
economic assistance to activities that are deemed to promote security
and stability in the region. All these departures, however, remain
subordinate to the treaty with the United States. This and the
persistence of incrementalism in Japanese policy, as noted earlier, can
be explained only by the continuing public, legal, and institutional
pressures in Japan against articulating and operationalizing a security
policy based on a strong national military.
Vietnam too has reoriented its security policy. Although the concern
over China remains, Vietnam's view of the international environment
is now more favorable. Internal security, particularly the "defense of
the socialist fatherland," has emerged as the primary concern (see
Chapter 14). In contrast to the earlier emphasis on the military
dimension, security is now defined more broadly to include the
political-ideological, economic, and social dimensions. And the
approach to security has

 Page 673
shifted from one of pure struggle to "struggle and cooperation."
Several reasons, all interconnected, account for these changes: the
weakening of socialism as the basis for political and economic
organization and the related concern with regime security that can be
traced to the post-1975 period; the heavy political, diplomatic,
economic, and military cost of trying to dominate all that was French
Indochina; the reduction and eventual termination of Soviet political,
economic, and military assistance; and the socializing effect of the
regional system, principally the success of the ASEAN states in
comparison to its own dire circumstances. Subsequent membership in
ASEAN has also affected Vietnam's approach to security.
In many cases the reappraisals we have identified were stimulated by
the interaction of changes: in the worldviews of political leaders; in
national priorities; in the material structure and dynamics of the
international political system; and in the global and regional political,
cultural, and institutional context. Even where material structure has
been a significant factor in stimulating change, the actual response has
varied from country to country and has been conditioned by unit-level
factors. In fact, change in material structure and its consequences are
not always evident. Despite the dramatic changes of the late 1980s
and early 1990s, Chinese leaders whose favorable view of the
international situation was based on the continuation of the Sino-
Soviet-American strategic triangle did not, at least initially,
comprehend the gravity of those changes. They were therefore slow in
reacting to them. It took the rapidity and severity of the Western
economic sanctions against China in the wake of the Tiananmen
incident for Beijing to realize the consequences of the changes and
then to adjust its policy accordingly.
We recognize that the foregoing discussion is suggestive, rather than
providing a substantive explanation of the various security
reappraisals. The number and breadth of the issues discussed as well
as space and time constraints prevent a more detailed account and
fuller explanation. Nevertheless, it is illustrative of the thrust of our
argument in this chapter that description and explanation of the full
range of the security concerns and behavior of Asian states requires
the combination of material and ideational factors at the intrastate,
unit, and systemic levels.
Conclusion
Asian security practice is highly complex, contested, and dynamic.
Central decision makers define security broadly; they are concerned
with internal and international threats; they deploy self-help and
cooperative strategies to protect the values they deem essential for the
survival and

 Page 674
prosperity of the nation-state, which is their central but problematic
referent of security.
Each of the international relations paradigms has the power to explain
certain aspects of Asian security practice. But none of them neither
those focused on the structure nor those rooted in unit-level
attributescan explain all the aspects. Realism, for example, which has
been widely deployed in analyzing Asian security practice, has certain
strengths but it also suffers several clear limitations. It draws attention
to international security concerns arising from conflicts of material
interests and changes in relative material capabilities. But as we noted
in discussing the political survival concerns of Asian states, many of
these conflicts and threat constructions are informed by competing
ideas about national identity and political legitimacy, as well as by
intersubjective understandings derived from state interactions over
decades if not hundreds or thousands of years. More significant is that
realism is unable to explain variations between countries (the
differences in the security behavior of contemporary China and Japan,
for example), changes in the security behavior of a single country (the
differences between prewar and postwar Japan or between Indonesia
under Sukarno and under Suharto), or the change in the behavior of a
group of countries like the ASEAN states, whose approach to security
has shifted from reliance on competition and self-help to embody
elements of cooperative and community security. Moreover, the
realist model, especially the neorealist variant, will be even less useful
in the future. Asian international politics is in the midst of change and
is becoming more complex. Political survival is an acute concern for
only a few states today. The national agendas of the other states are
becoming broader and more diverse. There is no strict hierarchy
among issues as assumed in the realist paradigm. Competition and
self-help as well as interdependence and cooperation characterize
Asian international politics. Though still important, the role of force is
changing and its utility declining.
Realism, one must conclude, is unable to capture the growing
complexity of Asian international politics and the changing normative
context. These limitations, however, can be substantially overcome by
a consideration of ideational factors. The inclusion of such factors
does not necessarily invalidate realism. As noted earlier, they can help
fill out realist explanations by exploring the knowledge base that
shapes the actors' understanding of reality and illuminating the
derivation and ordering of their interests. Apart from enabling deeper
understanding, social factors also make it possible to explain the
differences in behavior across states and over time. The different
political-cultural legacies of China and Japan, for example, explain
the differences in their contempo-

 Page 675
rary behavior. A strong realpolitik tradition, the desire to erase past
shame and humiliation, and the goal of reclaiming China's rightful
place in the region and the world explain the strong presence of realist
elements in the security behavior of China. The strong post-World
War II antimilitaristic legacy of Japan, on the other hand, inhibits the
development of independent national military capabilities and the
resort to force to settle international disputes. It explains in large part
the ''abnormal" behavior of postwar Japan. Constructivism is also
useful in drawing attention to the changing nature of international
politics in Asia and its implications for the security problematic. It
explains not only the emergence of cooperative security but also the
subsequent changes in beliefs and interests, as well as the
transformation of the security problem from a sharply competitive
zero-sum game into a mixed-motive game (competition and
cooperation) such as has occurred with the ASEAN states.
The key point is that Asian security practice cannot be explained
solely on the basis of material interests and power realities without
reference to social factors. The international security concerns and
behavior of Asian states are often a product of the interplay of ideas,
interests, and power. To explain them properly one must draw upon,
and where appropriate, combine the insights of the related paradigms
and theories, especially those of realism and constructivism.
Paradigms and theories may also have to be deployed selectively to
suit the circumstances. Such synthesis and contextualization may not
be acceptable to theorists who present these paradigms as
incompatible because of their conflicting premises. Nevertheless, as
pointed out by Peter Katzenstein (1996: 500-505), a certain amount of
convergence has taken place, and recent developments have made for
nuanced articulations of "realist and liberal positions that seek to
integrate culture and identity into their analyses." Hasenclever, Mayer,
and Rittberger (1996) point out that some synthesis is in fact possible
between rationalism (neorealism and neoliberalism) and what they
call weak cognitivism. They also call for a dialogue between
rationalists and strong cognitivists.
One of the central claims borne out by this chapter is that the nature of
the political unit itself is critical to our understanding of Asian
security behavior. Thus it is necessary to move beyond these system-
level approaches to examine the state and its internal dynamics. The
few international relations theories that do link unit-level variables to
international behavior have focused on decision making, institutional
structure, regime type, and more recently nationalism. Though not
explicitly investigated in the country chapters, some of these variables
may help to explain certain aspects of Asian security behavior. But it
is

 Page 676
the state's internal dynamics, especially the contestations of national
identity and political legitimacy, that lie at the heart of the internal
security concerns that figure prominently on the security agendas of
Asian central decision makers. Mainstream paradigms of international
relations, however, cannot explain internal security because they are
constructed on the assumption of cohesive, sovereign political units
and legitimate actors. This is a major limitation. It is imperative that
explanations of Asian security pay particular attention to the
interaction of state and society. This chapter has limited itself to
highlighting the significance of intrastate variables. Future work must
go further to posit and then investigate hypotheses that link the
domestic variables to the security problems and behavior of Asian
states.
The understanding of Asian security practice requires the deployment
not only of the insights provided by competing paradigms of
international politics, but also of those derived from comparative
politics. This is a demanding requirement. Few can develop expertise
in so many different areas. And then there is the professional
requirement to specialize and the pressure to compartmentalize
political science into international relations and comparative politics.
But these difficulties do not obviate the need for greater fertilization
across these divides. Teaching and research programs on Asian
security must begin to integrate the history, culture, domestic politics,
and international relations of Asian states.

 Page 677

20
Conceptualizing Security Hierarchy and Conceptual
Traveling
Muthiah Alagappa
Discussion in the previous chapter of the key features of Asian
security practice supports the observation in Chapter 1 that security
must be conceptualized to go beyond the concern with international
military threat to the political survival of the state. Because the nature
of states and their internal and international circumstances vary
widely, conceptualization of security must be capable of
accommodating a multiplicity of referents; both internal and
international challenges to political survival; a more comprehensive
interpretation of political survival; a range of other related values; and
an array of approaches that includes competition and conflict as well
as cooperation and community-building. The need to conceptualize
security to allow for variations in the referent, nature, and scope of the
security problem, as well as in approach, and simultaneously to
preserve the analytical utility of the concept, however, presents a
formidable challenge. Because of that complexity and the lack of a
coherent alternative basis, even some of those who are otherwise
sympathetic to a conceptualization that goes beyond the concern with
military force have become more cautious about, if not skeptical of,
redefining security. Some, like Richard Ullman, have retreated from
their earlier advocacy for a broader definition of security. Ullman
(1995: 3, 12) now states:

 Page 678
If national security encompasses all serious and urgent threats to a nation-
state and its citizens, we will eventually find ourselves using a different
term when we wish to make clear that our subject is the threats that might
be posed by the military force of other states. The "war problem" is
conceptually distinct from, say, problems like environmental degradation
or urban violence, which are better characterized as threats to well-
being....Labeling a set of circumstances as a problem of national security
when it has no likelihood of involving as part of the solution a state's
organs of violence accomplishes nothing except obfuscation.
This belief that security cannot be conceptualized apart from state
organized violence is a complete reversal of his earlier position that
"defining national security merely (or even primarily) in military
terms conveys a profoundly false image of reality [which] is doubly
misleading and therefore doubly dangerous" (Ullman 1983: 129).
Although we share the concern of Ullman and others with regard to
the difficulties of redefining security, we do not infer that this must
inevitably lead us back to the acceptance of a force-based definition.
Our discussions in Chapters 1 and 19 strongly suggest that the
conceptualization of security must not be limited to or even proceed
on the basis of the means by which values are threatened or are to be
protected, i.e., the "how" component. Further, although military force
and war are important instruments, they do not exhaust the means to
threaten or protect and enhance political survival. "Who" (referent)
and ''what" (values) are to be protected are critical elements in the
structure of security. They determine the nature of security problems
and how they are to be addressed. Those elements rather than the
"how" component must be given priority in the conceptualization of
security.
Based on the observations and findings in earlier chapters as well as
other published works, this final chapter seeks to advance a
conceptualization of security that incorporates but goes beyond the
traditional force-based definitions; one that is externally relevant, that
is, can be contextualized to accommodate diversity in referents,
threats, and approaches, but that is also internally coherent and
analytically useful. Given the enormity and complexity of this
challenge, we are under no illusion that the formulation advanced here
resolves all the associated problems, if indeed there can be a
resolution of such problems. Our goal is more modestto move the
debate further along through a conceptualization that bridges the
competing definitions, whose proponents often appear to be talking
past each other.
Rather than begin afresh, as advocated by some (especially those of
the postmodernist persuasion), the conceptualization advanced in this

 Page 679
chapter modifies and builds on earlier definitions of security. The
concept of security, as observed by Ole Waever (1995), Daniel
Deudney (1990), and others, has a history, has certain critical
characteristics (we disagree with Deudney on what these are), and
operates in a certain context. Although it should not be limited by
these considerations, if it is to be more than just an intellectual
exercise, and if it is to resonate in a wider circle both in the
intellectual and policy communities, then our conceptualization must
incorporate and begin with some of the same key considerations but
then must suitably modify, extend, or supplement them. This building-
from-within approach is also in accord with our effort to find common
ground to foster dialogue and a shared understanding of security.
In line with this thinking, the articulation of security in this chapter
builds on two key features of the realist security problematic. First,
the political communitypresently the nation-stateis the primary
security referent. Second, the concern with political survival
constitutes the core of security. These two features, however, must be
deepened and broadened to accommodate (1) the problematic nature
of states and the existence of competing referents for political
community within states, as well as the emergence of supranational
entities like the European Union; (2) internal challenges to political
survival; and (3) a more comprehensive view of political survival in
terms of its content, threats, and coping strategies. The case for
deepening and broadening the content of political survival is the focus
of the first section of this chapter. The claim that a comprehensive
notion is warranted even in this core area of security is a critical one.
It is more difficult for realists to dismiss the claim to a deeper and
broader notion of security that is rooted in a consideration of political
survivalthe central concern of their problematicthan to dismiss those
claims advanced on the basis of alternative conceptions that seek to
replace the state with "new" referents or broaden the security agenda
to include nonconventional issues and problems.
The second section argues that although the problem of political
survival is prototypical and constitutes the core of security, it does not
necessarily preclude the broadening of the security agenda to include
economic, sociocultural, environmental, and such other concerns.
However, on this point, especially where such concerns are not linked
to political survival, the case is less clear and less compelling. We are
convinced that nonconventional concerns that affect political survival,
even though they may not involve the use of force, can be viewed as
security concerns. We are much less certain of the value of attaching
the security label to nonconventional concerns that have only
marginal or no

 Page 680
connection to political survival. Nevertheless, we believe the
conceptualization of security must not arbitrarily exclude them. If
considered necessary, however, their inclusion must be undertaken
cautiously and deliberately and must satisfy certain criteria. We argue
that for an issue or problem to be labeled as a security concern, it must
be vital to the political survival or well-being of a community, and it
must be of such gravity and urgency that it requires the mobilization
of a substantial part and ultimately, if the need arises, of all the
resources of the community. The determination of relevance, gravity,
and urgency is to be made by the community in concern.
The third and final section argues that instead of being limited to one
specific definition that inevitably cannot bear the burden of internal
coherence, external relevance, and parsimony, security is better
conceptualized in a hierarchic manner with different levels of
abstraction. At the highest generic level, we define security as the
protection and enhancement of values that the authoritative decision
makers deem vital for the survival and well-being of a community.
This declarative definition, to be fleshed out later, is an inclusive one
with the minimum necessary "intension" properties to indicate the
critical essence of the concept and articulate the basis for inclusion
and exclusion of an issue as a security concern.

1 It, however, does not specify membership, and its analytical utility is
limited. Membership and analytically relevant concepts, however, can
be derived from this generic definition by conceptual traveling, that is,
descending the ladder of generality or abstraction by adding
"intension" properties. This approach enables a conceptualization of
security that can accommodate complexity, diversity, and change, as
well as address concerns relating to analytical relevance. It also
provides a basis for mapping, organizing, and finding conceptual
order among the many neologismssecurity with adjectivesthat have
entered the security literature. We begin with the claim that a
comprehensive notion of security is warranted even in relation to
political survival, the central concern of the realist security
problematic.

Political Survival: The Need For A Broad Interpretation

Concerns relating to political survival constitute the core of the
security definitions and practices of Asian states. This does not imply
that political survival of all Asian states is precarious or that it is the
highest priority that dominates and informs all other concerns as
depicted in the realist paradigm. In fact, as pointed out in Chapter 19,
political survival in its most basic form is a concern only to North and
South Korea and Taiwan. For the others, political survival concerns
are more limited and

 Page 681
less urgent. They do not always override other goals and interests.
Nevertheless, insofar as the domain of security is concerned, its core
is composed of matters relating to political survival.
Realist features and the definitions of security rooted in them, such as
those of Patrick Morgan (1992) and Stephen Walt (1991) are not
inapplicable to Asian states. The nation-state is the most valued
political unit in Asia. Asian central decision makers claim and act on
the basis of sovereignty. They are concerned with threats to autonomy
and territorial integrity from other states. And they devote substantial
resources to the development of military capability, which they view
as essential to protect and enhance national security. Asian security
practice, however, is not confined to these elements. The notion of
political survival as understood and practiced by Asian decision
makers is deeper and broader in several ways. First, although the
nation-state is a highly valued norm, the specific political construction
of nation and state, and the basis for political domination, are
contested issues in a large number of Asian countries. The existing
nation-state is not necessarily the security referent for all peoples
residing within "national" boundaries. From the perspective of
governments, in addition to the nation-state, the security referent often
includes a certain ethnic or religious group, a specific political system,
or the power elite. Governments frequently fuse the security of these
various entities. Thus a conception of security that is relevant to Asia
and many other parts of the world must take account of the
problematic nature of the state and of the presence of other security
referents, some of which may compete with the existing state.
Asian security practice, however, does not support alternate
conceptions that seek to replace the nation-state with other security
referents such as the individual, society, the regional or global
community, or humanity.
2 Admittedly there are human rights organizations in Asian countries
that argue for individual security and environmental NGOs that argue
for environmental security. Their aim, however, is not to do away
with the state. In the case of human rights organizations their goal is
to limit the reach of the state and to increase the political freedom and
space for the individual. The goal of environmental organizations is to
increase environmental awareness and to infuse such considerations
into state policy. These and other such organizations do not view the
state as inherently evil or ineffective. As noted in the last chapter, the
nation-state is still the most appealing form of political organization,
and there is no acceptable alternative to it in Asia. That Asian
practices do not support the case for other referents, however, does
not imply that this is the case in all other regions. In Europe, for
example, it has been argued that in light of the ongoing changes in the
nature of the Western

 Page 682
European nation-states, society in those states and the European
Union itself are emerging as security referents (Waever 1995).
Conceptualization of security must be flexible enough to
accommodate these and other similar entities as referents.
Second, the international political survival concerns of Asian states
are not only a product of conflicting material interests, the struggle for
power, international anarchy, or the distribution of capabilities; they
are also rooted in the collective understandings of states, derived from
historical and contemporary interactions as well as their political and
strategic cultural legacies. Considerations of identity, national self-
conception, and historical legacies, for example, underpin conflicts
between China and Taiwan, North and South Korea, and India and
Pakistan that on the surface appear to be driven by material
considerations and the realist logic of anarchy. Moreover, for some
states, internal challenges rooted in the problematic nature of the
political units especially those challenges related to the construction
of national identity and to the normative frameworks and institutions
associated with the acquisition and exercise of state powerare as
consequential if not more so than international ones. Often, concerns
about political survival span several levels, and frequently they are
interconnected. The sources of insecurity are multiple and will vary:
for some states the primary problem may issue from their problematic
construction; for others it may lie in the international material
structure; and for yet others, the normative context may be more
significant.
Third, in many cases what is to be secured is not only physical
interestslife, territory, resources, or other material interestsbut also
ideas that form the political, cultural, and religious basis of the nation,
and principles and norms on the basis of which institutions for
political domination have been constituted. The range of values
associated with political survival thus transcends autonomy and
territorial integrity to include, among others, the following:
consolidation of the ideational basis that underpins the construction of
nation and state and constitutes the basis for political domination;
preservation of internal order and political stability; promotion of
economic growth, development, and distributive justice; preservation
of the sociocultural essence of the nation; and the preservation and
enhancement of an international context, both normative and material,
that is conducive to the attainment of these and other values, interests,
and goals.
Fourth, political survival is threatened not only by military force but
also by competing political ideas and sociocultural values. Such
factors can pose substantial challenges to the ideational components
of political survival, and frequently they are as important if not even
more conse-

 Page 683
quential than military challenges. Ideational challenges underlay or
contributed to the partitioning of British India in 1947, the ejection of
Singapore from Malaysia in 1963, the breakup of Pakistan in 1971,
the dramatic political changes that occurred in Thailand (1973, 1991)
and the Philippines (1986), and the political challenges that
confronted China in 1989 and that continue to confront Myanmar
since 1988. Political ideas such as democracy and human rights are
presently viewed by several Asian governments as threats to survival
because of the perceived adverse consequences for political stability
and economic development, and because of the challenges they pose
to the political legitimacy of the incumbent elite. Migration is
perceived as a threat because of its potential to challenge the identity
of a nation-state or a subnational unit, in some cases with
consequences for control of political power. Asian political elites are
hypersensitive to such ideational threats to political survival and
respond to them with as much vigor as the military challenges evince.
Finally, in addressing the multifaceted challenges to political survival,
the coping strategies of Asian states traverse and integrate the
political, diplomatic, legal, sociocultural, economic, and military
realms. Some of the specific measures deployed in addressing internal
security concerns, for example, include devolution of power and
authority; political, constitutional, and legal provisions for majority
and minority rights; strict regulation of political organization and the
media; national education and cultural policies; emphasis on
economic development; and political, legal, and military suppression.
Military force is one among many policy instruments. It is not always
the most important, and frequently it plays a supporting role.
Excessive emphasis on this instrument can also be counterproductive.
At the international level, national military capabilities, alliances, and
alignments are critical components of the approach to national
security. But, in addition to self-help, Asian states employ cooperation
and community-building strategies at the bilateral, subregional, and
regional levels to prevent, contain, and terminate conflicts; build
confidence, trust, and shared understandings; and develop a normative
context that is supportive of the consolidation of the existing nation-
states, promotes economic growth and development, and more
generally facilitates peaceful international interaction.
It is evident from the foregoing discussion that conceptualization of
security even as it relates to the core value of political survival has to
be deeper and broader than that articulated in realist definitions of
security. It must be capable of accommodating contested and multiple
referents and a broad range of values, threats, and coping strategies,
and must include both the internal and international levels.
Conceptualization of

 Page 684
security must also embody the material and ideational dimensions of
security problems. The incorporation of the ideational dimension into
security analysis must go beyond simply plugging additional variables
like ethnicity and nationalism into structural realist analysis (Krause
and Williams 1996: 239-42). This is the shortcoming, for example, of
Barry Posen's (1993) attempt to explain ethnic conflict in terms of an
internal security dilemma and Steven Van Evera's (1994) attempt to
develop hypotheses linking nationalism and international conflict.
Group identities and nationalism are not always given, and they are
salient in some situations and not in others. Security analysis must
explore the processes identified in Chapters 1 and 19, because they
can provide insights into the causes and effects of these and other
variables, and elucidate their interconnection with political survival.
However attractive it may be in terms of analytical utility and
theoretical coherence, the limitation of security to an international
structural problem, with the focus on state autonomy and territorial
integrity and the military threats to these values, falls well short on the
criterion of external relevance. Asian experiences, and those in many
other parts of the world, do not support such a restrictive
interpretation of political survival or the accompanying definitions of
security. A comprehensive view of political survival is not novel.
Governments in Asia and many other parts of the world have long
interpreted political survival along such lines and have addressed
related concerns as security issues. Further, this holistic view of
political survival cannot be dismissed as applicable only to
inconsequential states in the periphery. It is critical to the analysis of
the security practice of even major states like China, Russia, and
India, which have been identified by realists as having the potential
soon to affect global and regional structures. Although it may not
apply to them or may apply only in a marginal way, for such powerful
states as the United States a comprehensive view of political survival
will facilitate better understanding of the security problems of most
other states and will contribute to the development of appropriate and
effective foreign and security policies around the globe. Incorrect
understanding of such problems can be costly. Failure to understand
the nationalist underpinnings and aspirations of the Vietnamese
Communist Party and the consequent interpretation of the conflict as
part of the global ideological struggle and as affecting vital American
national interests, for example, cost the United States dearly in terms
of blood, treasure, and domestic support, leading eventually to its
defeat in the Vietnam War.
The deepening and broadening of the concern with political survival
does not alter the focus of security, although its extension to include
the

 Page 685
intrastate level and ideational challenges implies that the theoretical
underpinnings of security cannot be limited to the realist paradigm
alone. It must also draw on other relevant theories and paradigms,
especially those that deal with the interaction of state and society. It
should be observed here that not every aspect of this broad notion
must apply to each state. Rather, the inclusive view ensures that
related issues are not excluded by definition, and that definitions and
concepts appropriate to the circumstances of a state or to the inquiry
in concern can be derived from it through further delimitation.
Nonconventional Dimensions And Security: The Connections
Although political survival, broadly defined, lies at the heart of Asian
security practice, it does not exhaust the security agenda of Asian
states. As noted in Chapter 19, Asian articulations of security often
include economic, sociocultural, and, less commonly, environmental
dimensions. There are two aspects to the nexus posited between
nonconventional concerns and security.
The Connection to Political Survival
The first and the more common linkage has to do with expanding the
list of concerns and strategies associated with the problem of political
survival. Here, the inclusion of nonconventional dimensions takes one
or more of the following forms: they are included as material interests
to be protected or augmented in connection with political survival; as
threats to national identity, political legitimacy, political stability,
autonomy, or territorial integrity; as sources of internal and
international disputes and conflicts; as affecting the capability of
states and thus their international power, prestige, and influence; and
finally as an instrument of policy in pursuit of the concerns associated
with political survival. This linkage between nonconventional
dimensions and political survival is best illustrated with reference to
economic security, which has been defined by many Asian
governments as a vital component of national security.
Economic growth and development are viewed as critical in
addressing internal and international challenges to political survival.
Internally, economic growth is valued because of the resources it
makes available to address social and economic problems, and for the
contribution it can thereby make to social and political stability and
more generally to the management of internal conflict and thus to the
development of national resilience. It is also viewed as a critical
resource for political legitimation.

 Page 686
Many Asian governments claim their right to rule on the basis of
economic performance and political stability (Alagappa 1995b: chaps.
2 and 11). Internationally, economic strength is viewed as a crucial
element of national power, prestige, and influence, and a key
prerequisite for the development and sustenance of military power.
This is a key consideration in the Chinese articulation of economic
security. Others like Japan view economic strength as a means to
compensate for their weakness in the military instruments of power.
Yet others like Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore seek to deploy
economic power in a strategic manner to enhance their prospects for
political survival. More generally economic strength is viewed as vital
to protect and enhance national interests and autonomy. Consequently,
threats to economic growth and development are viewed as threats to
national security.
This linkage between nonconventional concerns and political survival
is a key component of the comprehensive definitions of security in
Asian states. It does not require a fundamental redefinition of security.
Its effect is to expand the range of interests, threats, and coping
strategies that bear upon political survival. Such concerns as economic
and energy security have always been viewed as connected to
security, although their salience may have been overshadowed by the
excessive focus on the military dimension during the Cold War.
Therefore, this aspect of the linkage between nonconventional
dimensions and security has not drawn much criticism from realists.
Many accept such a limited broadening because of the belief that it
can be accommodated by realist articulations of security. There is,
however, one major difficulty that is not always appreciated.
Although accommodating additional threats to political survival or
viewing nonconventional issues as possible sources of interstate
conflict may not be problematic for the realist paradigm, their
resolution is. Resolution of these nonconventional threats does not rest
only or even primarily on military force. Nonmilitary measures may
be much more significant in resolving such threats to political
survival.
For example, military force is only one of many options for the
management of energy security. Most recently it was deployed to
protect access to oil in the 1991 Gulf War. But in the long term,
nonmilitary measures like finding alternative sources and reducing
energy consumption and dependence may be more critical in the
management of energy security (Romm 1993: 37-50). Similarly,
although migration and environmental issues may threaten identity
and control of state power or may produce domestic and interstate
tensions and conflicts, military force and war are not central or even
necessary to their resolution. Because of this consideration, some
realists reject even the limited broadening or seek to limit it to aspects
that involve the threat and use of

 Page 687
force. From the perspective of the Asian central decision makers,
however, the fact that force may be irrelevant to managing such
concerns, and that the expertise required to manage them may be
radically different, does not disqualify them from being labeled as
security concerns. What matters is their impact on the political
survival and wellbeing of their respective communities.
The Connection to the WellBeing of the Community
Such an interpretation leads to the second and more far-reaching
linkage, which seeks to make concerns like economic wellbeing,
sustainable development, a healthy environment, and a drug-free
society security issues in their own right, not because of their
consequences for political survival but because of their impact on the
wellbeing of the community. This connection has been especially
controversial and has been resisted by realists and others. Ullman's
objection, cited earlier, to the inclusion of threats to wellbeing as
security concerns is an example of such resistance. The case for and
arguments against this linkage have been rehearsed in Chapter 1. As
noted there, the case against the inclusion of "new" concerns has
considerable merit but it is also flawed in several respects. The
differences between the nonconventional and the so-called traditional
concerns of security, though significant, are frequently exaggerated; it
is fallacious to argue that concerns that do not involve the threat or
use of force are not security issues; the nation-state is not the only
referent of security; the meaning and content of security are not fixed,
they vary across countries and regions and over time; and expertise
cannot be the basis for defining what is and is not a security issue.
Notwithstanding these rebuttals, there is still the difficult problem of
how to define and delimit the scope of security. In the absence of set
criteria, all manner of things can be labeled as security concerns. The
concept and the subfield will not have coherence. Further, one must
consider whether attaching the security label to various concerns adds
value in terms of analysis and policy making. Our view is that the
added value arising from the second linkage is rather marginal.
Although it may, at the highest levels in government, provide a
framework for viewing the many and competing demands on the
scarce resources of the state in a more integrated manner and facilitate
prioritization among them, that can be done even without labeling
them as security concerns. The case for the second linkage, i.e.,
making nonconventional issues security concerns in their own right, is
thus less clear, and Asian practices do not provide strong support for
it. Many of the nonconventional security concerns of Asian states in
fact relate to political survival.

 Page 688
Nevertheless, the second linkage should not be excluded by
definitional fiat. The inclusion or exclusion of nontraditional security
concerns must be based on criteria that are independent of specific
worldviews, and this must be specified as part of the generic
definition of security.
Security: A Hierarchic Conceptualization
It is clear from the discussion in this book that the realist conception
of security, particularly the neorealist variant, is inadequate but not
irrelevant. It has certain validity at the international level for a large
number of countries, but it does not encompass all of the legitimate
security problems likely to confront them. The advocates for
alternative conceptions of security do a valuable service in pointing
out the shortcomings of the realist conception, especially the need to
view the political survival problem in a broader perspective and the
importance of including nonconventional concerns that affect political
survival. However, as noted in Chapter 1, they too are not without
limitations. The different conceptions have usually been presented by
their proponents as contending and incompatible. The investigations
in this book do not support such sharp divisions. On the contrary, they
suggest a more inclusive view that incorporates elements from the
various conceptions of security.
Rather than engage in an intellectual debate that is basically
unresolvable because of the different worldviews in which the various
conceptions are rooted, a more satisfactory approach would be to
conceptualize security at a higher level of abstraction so that the
concept can accommodate diversity and change. At the highest level,
security would be cast as a generic concept; its essence and
boundaries would be defined but not the actual referent, the specific
values to be protected, the nature and types of threats to them, or how
security is to be achieved. These aspects will feature in the more
concrete concepts at the species and subspecies levels that can be
concrete concepts at the species and subspecies levels that can be
derived by descending the ''ladder of generality or abstraction," that is,
by increasing the intension properties to make the concept discrete
enough to suit the issue and task at hand.

By freeing security from association with any particular referent, core

value, or approach, a more abstract definition of security would permit
inquiry at any level and into any issue or any combination of them
that merits consideration under this label. The "conceptual traveling"
that is enabled by this approach also permits the researcher to address
the issue of specific concern by specifying or deriving subtypes from
the generic definition of security without committing the error of

 Page 689
"conceptual stretching."

4 Theories and concepts appropriate to each level and domain can

then be deployed to facilitate inquiry. This is in keeping with our
conclusion in Chapter 19 that more than one theory is required to
explain the security concerns of Asian states. This approach also
addresses several, though not all, of the concerns of both the realists
and the advocates of alternative conceptions of security.

In particular, the generic definition permits a more inclusive view of

security, and the concrete concepts derived from it address the
concern relating to analytical utility. In this conceptualization, those
desiring to limit their inquiry to the political-military dimension at the
international level can do so by specifying the appropriate intension
characteristics. Others can investigate the referents and values related
to their concerns, again by an appropriate delimitation of the concept.
This is not simply a schema to permit unrelated inquiries. The various
concerns must still share a conceptual thread and satisfy certain
criteria in order to be considered as part of the domain of security. A
generic definition of security must fulfill these requirements.
The Essence of Security and Membership Criteria
Our generic definition of securitythe protection and enhancement of
values that the authoritative decision makers deem vital for the
survival and wellbeing of a communitylimits the referent of security to
community on the basis that security is for and about people, who
normally provide for their individual and group security by organizing
themselves into communities. Usually, such communities have or
aspire to political expression in the form of a nation-state. This
definition, however, does not exclude other forms of expression such
as the supranational European Union, which is developing some
aspects of a political community. Nor does it preclude subnational or
transnational communities that may or may not aspire to independent
political community status but are nevertheless concerned with the
survival of their communities as distinct sociocultural entities. This is
the case with many minority communities in the multiethnic states of
Asia and in other parts of the world. The definition does, however,
exclude nonhuman entities like the international economic system or
the ecological system as security referents in their own right.
The core concern of security in our generic definition is the survival
and wellbeing of the community. It does not specify the vital values
they seek to protect or the challenges against which those values have
to be protected. It does, however, provide three criteria for
determining membership, that is, for deciding whether an issue or
problem warrants

 Page 690
the security label. First, the value must be vital to the survival and
wellbeing of a community. In other words, it must be a critical feature
that defines the communitysuch as sovereignty, territorial integrity,
and national identity in the case of a state, or certain sociocultural
features like ethnicity, religion, or language in the case of minority
communities in multiethnic statesand without which its very existence
would be severely compromised. Such features may be physical or
ideational, and they may include possession and milieu goals. Second,
the threat or challenge to these vital values must be urgent, with grave
consequences for the community. Although the threat and use of
military force is a useful criterion in determining the urgency and
gravity of threat, it is not the only criterion and may not always be
critical. Relying on the threat or use of state organized force as the
sole or even a necessary criterion can obscure other challenges that
ultimately can have dramatic social and political consequences. A
more appropriate criterion for determining gravity and urgency would
be the perception of the community as well as the mobilization and
allocation of its resources. If a substantial part and ultimately allof a
community's intellectual and material resources will be mobilized to
confront a challenge, then it could be labeled as a security concern.
The composition of defining features and the determination of what
constitutes a serious threat, however, will vary by the history and
nature of the communitypremodern, modern, or postmodern, for
exampleas well as the material and normative contexts in which the
community resides. National identity, for example, is problematic and
a critical concern in most Asian states but not in most Western states.
Even in those states where national identity is a concern, the tolerance
level and what constitutes a threat to national identity can vary quite
widely and can change over time. That the determination of vital
values as well as the threshold for construction of threats will vary by
community and circumstances may be illustrated with reference to the
impact of migration on identity: some states have labeled migration as
a security concern and others have not, or at least not to the same
degree. Some countries like the United States and India (because of
their histories, size, and the ideas that underpin their national
identities, among other considerations) have a much higher tolerance
level than, for example, Japan or South Korea, which define national
identity strictly along ethnic lines. Thus even a few hundred thousand
migrants are perceived as polluting and threatening Japanese and
Korean national identity, whereas the six million or so Bangladeshi
illegal immigrants in India and the substantial increase in the Hispanic
population in the United States are viewed with less alarm, at least at
the national level.

 Page 691
Because of its delicate demographic structure and the idea of a Malay-
based Malaysia with the accompanying goal of Malay political
domination, Malaysia is more tolerant of Malay-Muslim migrants,
especially from Indonesia and the Philippines, but less tolerant of
Chinese and Indian migrants. The inflow in the 1970s and early 1980s
of a few hundred thousand Vietnamese boat people, predominantly of
Chinese ancestry, was labeled a security threat, but the inflow of an
even larger number of Muslim Filipinos and Indonesians was viewed
with much less concern and even seen as a plus among some segments
of the Malay elite. Similarly, Singapore's tolerance level with regard
to migration is influenced by its physical location in a Malay world,
the desire to maintain the dominant political position of the Chinese
community, and the consideration of political and social stability.
Tolerance levels also vary with time and changing circumstances. In
Western Europe, for example, migration and its economic and identity
consequences have only recently become, at least in some
representations, a key social, political, and security problem.
Consequently the determination of vital values, and of what
constitutes urgent and grave threats to them, cannot be fixed across
communities or over time. This leads to the third criterion: The vital
values of a community and the threats against which they are to be
protected must be determined by the community in question, that is,
by its authoritative decision makers.
Our generic definition may be objected to at least on three
interconnected counts: its openness to abuse; its subjectivity; and the
problems it poses for theory-building. That this definition, particularly
its provision for broadening the scope of security and leaving the
judgment of what is and is not a threat to the authoritative decision
makers of the community, is open to abuse cannot be disputed.
However, because of its emotive content and the high priority and
sacrifice it commands, the concept of security has always been open
to abuse. Issues have been "securitized" or "desecuritized" by leaders
and officials to serve their vested interests, to justify resource
allocation, to justify their hold on power, to suppress political
opposition, and so forth. Hence, the charge of openness to abuse
cannot be the basis for rejecting the definition advanced here. In any
case, such abuse can and must be discerned from the context of the
norms, rules, and practices of the society in question. The analyst does
not have to accept the views and actions of incumbent power holders.
Those views can and must be compared to and evaluated in the
context of articulations and practices of others in society, both in and
out of government, who are competent to engage in the practice of
security. There are several ways of discerning abuse. A crucial task of
the analyst is to detect abuse and to factor that into his or her analysis.

 Page 692
The objection based on subjectivity has greater merit. Political
survival of the community and its well-being, and the criteria for
determining what is grave and urgent, are open to widely differing
interpretations. They can be defined in less or more inclusive ways,
and assessment of what threatens them cannot be objectively
determined. However, as noted in Chapter 19, threat construction,
even in the case of conventional threats, has a strong subjective
component. It is informed not only by material factors but also by
ideational ones including the collective understanding of actors
derived from historical and contemporary interaction. A
comprehensive view of security such as that advanced by our
conception increases the subjective component. This, however, is the
nature of the beast and has to be accepted. Any attempt to restrict the
concept to give it greater certitude and rigor would distance analysis
from reality and may be misleading. Ultimately, the determination of
what constitutes a threat to survival or well-being will have to be
made by persons holding responsible positions. As noted earlier, this
does not imply that the analyst must necessarily accept the threat
perception, say, of a government; only that it must be framed and
validated in the context of the society's collective understanding. It
cannot be imposed from the outside.
Finally, the claims that security is situational and must be explained
based on the mutual knowledge of the society in question, and that the
conceptualization of security must allow for diversity and change,
may be interpreted as inhibiting to theory-building. It is difficult to
refute the contention that the context-sensitive approach is less
conducive to the development of universal generalizations. But that
does not imply that no generalization is possible; only that
generalizations will be bound by context, both spatial and temporal.
Such generalizations are not without explanatory power. It should be
observed here that even concepts and theories, such as those
constructed on neorealist foundations, that purport to be scientific and
universal have not lived up to their claims (Krause and Williams
1996: 235-42). For several reasons, theory-building in social science
as envisaged in positivism has not fared well (Giddens 1979: 234-60).
Consequently, shortcomings on this score cannot be the basis for
rejecting alternative conceptions of security. Moreover, the purpose of
the generic definition is to indicate essence and boundary. It must be
judged by these criteria and not by analytical usefulness. The
hierarchic conception, however, makes it possible to derive more
concrete and discrete concepts through conceptual traveling. Such
concepts will be analytically more useful and also facilitate theory-
building. Because the concrete concepts are less subjective and less
amenable to abuse, they may also minimize some of the shortcom-

 Page 693
ings noted above, which of course are not unique to the more
inclusive view of security articulated here.
Derivation of More Concrete Concepts
The generic definition is a bare-bones, declarative definition and is
meant to be inclusive. Context-sensitive and analytically useful
concepts may be derived from it through the creation of subtypes by
moving down or up the ladder of generality, that is, by increasing or
decreasing the attributes to specify the desired membership. For
example, the security referent in the generic definition is community,
which encompasses a broad range of human collectivities in the
world. If the requirement is to investigate the security of the political
community expressed in the form of nation-state, then the more
distinct and relevant concept of national security may be derived by
adding the attributes of sovereignty and territorial integrity to the
minimal attributes of community. Through further delimitation, one
can move further down the ladder to derive the additional subtypes of
regime security, societal security, and communal security to
investigate the security of regimes, society, and communal
(ethnoreligious) groups, respectively. One may also move up the
ladder to investigate the security of a regional community like the
European Union.
Similarly, the scope of security may be specified by moving up or
down the ladder of generality. In this regard several subtypes may be
noted. High on the ladder are those that seek to indicate the full range
of security concerns both in terms of values and threats. These
maximalist security subtypes include concepts like comprehensive
security, total security, and national resilience. They are essentially
descriptive, not analytical, concepts. These maximalist subtypes
subdivide into concerns with political survival and well-being. The
former is concerned with the essential core of security whereas the
latter relates to the conditions of existence. Political survival further
subdivides into traditional or conventional security and
nonconventional security. Political survival, defined in terms of
autonomy and territorial integrity and international military threats to
these values, forms the core of what some have termed traditional
security. Nonconventional security comprises ideational, economic,
and technological components that relate to political survival.
Economic security can be further disaggregated into resource security,
energy security, food security, market security, distributive justice,
and so forth. Similar disaggregation is possible with the other
components of nonconventional security. As with the referent and
scope, subtypes may also be derived with respect to how security is to
be achieved.

 Page 694

 Page 695

Figure 3
Security with Adjectives: Mapping and Organization

 Page 696
By enabling the derivation of discrete concepts to specify referents, to
delimit the scope, and to identify approaches to security, this
hierarchic conceptualization facilitates comparative analysis and
prevents conceptual stretching and obfuscation. If the concern, for
example, is to investigate how governments seek to protect and
enhance the security of power holders, then the relevant concept is
regime security, not national security although decision makers may
deploy the latter concept to obscure the actual concern. Similarly,
although the generic definition of security may define the scope in a
broad manner, the derivation of subtypes enables investigation to
focus on selected values and threats. An investigation of political
survival, for example, can be broad, covering internal and
international challenges traversing the physical, ideational, and
nonconventional dimensions, or it can be targeted to investigate a
specific concern such as ideological security or international military
threats to sovereignty. If the objective is to investigate the security of
energy supply, then the appropriate concept is energy security rather
than resource or economic security, which are more general concepts.
This contention may appear obvious, but it warrants emphasis because
it gets to the heart of the objection that a more inclusive definition of
security is not compatible with analytical usefulness. It does, however,
mean that specific terminology must be deployed for each referent,
specific value or threat, or approach. But as illustrated by such terms
as national security, international security, regional security,
conventional security, nuclear security, low-intensity conflicts, self-
help, collective self-defense, balance of power, collective security,
and so forth, a degree of lexical specificity was already the practice
even within the domain of the so-called traditional security. The same
is true of the nonconventional aspects of security, as evidenced by
concepts like societal security, communal security, individual
security, ideological security, environmental security, economic
security, cooperative security, and community security. Many of the
security, cooperative security, and community security. Many of the
discrete concepts, as illustrated in Figure 3, are already in use. Thus
the "unsettling costs" of the proposed conceptualization of security
should be minimal.

In addition to facilitating focused inquiry and comparative analysis,

this conceptualization based on different levels of abstraction, in
conjunction with the structure of security elaborated in the
Introduction, enables mapping and organization and the finding of
conceptual order among the many termssecurity with adjectivesthat
have become common in the discourse on security. Most of these
terms can be grouped under the key elements of security: referent,
level, scope, and approach. Some terms that do not fit under the
constituent elements of security may be organized in a group that
relates to the state or condition

 Page 697
of security. Within each group the terms may be organized from the
top down in terms of their generality. An exercise of this nature, as
mapped in Figure 3, brings a certain order to the field and may also
encourage greater discipline in the coining of new terms.
Conclusion
Security must be conceptualized with survival of the political
community as its core. Political survival, however, may be threatened
not only by other states but also from within a state. And challenges to
political survival go beyond military force to include ideational,
sociocultural, and economic ones. Although political survival
constitutes the nucleus, conceptions of security must also be able to
accommodate serious challenges to the well-being of a community,
which may be viewed as forming the outer ring. The inclusion of
well-being is not as novel as it may appear. The American goal of
making the world safe for democracy, for example, has more to do
with ensuring favorable conditions of existence than ensuring survival
in the minimal sense. The extension of well-being to include
nonconventional, especially environmental, dimensions may be
viewed in a similar manner, although it is not clear what the added
value will be from attaching the security label to such concerns.
Nevertheless a conception of security that can embrace the aspects we
have identified must necessarily be an inclusive one. A single all-
embracing definition of security, however, is limited in analytical
value. The conceptualization of security advanced in this chapter
seeks to overcome that difficulty by articulating an inclusive generic
definition, but one from which analytically useful discrete concepts
can be derived.
All conceptualizations and definitions of security, including that
advanced here, will have shortcomings. The conceptualization in this
chapter, however, has several merits. It indicates the core concern of
security and the basis for membership; it is abstract and inclusive, and
it can accommodate different worldviews; it permits deepening and
broadening but not indiscriminately; it enables the derivation of more
specific and analytically useful concepts; and it can capture the
complexity, diversity, contestation, and change that characterize the
social practice of security. Further, it seeks to distill, preserve, and
build on the essential meaning and practice of security. Among the
advantages of the proposed conceptualization are its inclusiveness and
its facility to engender more concrete and discrete concepts through
"conceptual traveling," thus facilitating comparative analysis and
helping us to find conceptual order among the many neologisms that
have now entered the security vocabulary.

 Page 699

REFERENCE MATTER

 Page 701

Notes
Introduction
1. For an elaboration of the argument that the idea of Asia is an
illusion, that culturally there are at least three Asias, and that ''Asian"
is not a counterpart of "European," see Steadman 1969.
2. For a discussion of the several uses of Asia, see Cohen, n.d.,
"Rashoman in South Asia."
3. This project initially conceptualized Asia to include Central Asia as
well. Papers were commissioned to investigate security practice in the
Central Asian states of Uzbekistan and Kazakstan. For a number of
reasons, those two papers had to be dropped from the volume.
4. On subordinate systems, see the introduction in Cantori and Spiegel
1970.
5. "Back to the Future" is the title of an article by Mearsheimer
(1990), which argues that post-Cold War Europe will be characterized
by instability.
6. Most of the pessimists on this issue are from the West. Asians, for
the most part, though concerned about uncertainties and possible
setbacks, are less pessimistic. This divide between Westerners and
Asians is obviously a crude one and should not be stretched. Some
Western analysts, for example, share the optimistic outlook of Asian
scholars.
7. At the first meeting of the ASEAN Regional Forum in 1994, it was
agreed to entrust the incoming chair with, among other things, the
responsibility to "study the comprehensive concept of security,
including its economic and social aspects, as it pertains to the Asia-
Pacific region." On comprehensive security in the ASEAN countries,
see Alagappa 1988.
8. On international society, see Bull and Watson 1984 and Buzan
1993a.
9. Calculated on the basis of statistics contained in United Nations
Conference on Trade and Development 1995: 337, 340.
10. For a dissenting view, see Krugman 1994.
11. Calculated from year-on-year growth rates (World Bank 1996: 22-
23).

 Page 702
12. Calculated on the basis of data in World Trade Organization 1996:
tables A3, A4, A5, and A6, pp. 138, 140, 143-44, 146-47, 149; and
International Monetary Fund 1995: 70-71.
13. The allocation for defense in the East Asian countries, for
example, is generally assumed to have increased sharply in the course
of the last decade, although a detailed study of actual expenditures
and how they are utilized has yet to be done. Some authors, Klare
(1993) and Segal (1992), for example, have argued that an arms race
is under way in Asia, but these remain superficial accounts. More
work has been done on the reasons for defense spending. See, for
example, Desmond Ball (1993-94), who argues that defense spending
in Asia appears to be correlated with economic circumstances.
14. For a statement of this position, see Kausikan 1993. For a
balanced discussion of the debate over human rights, see Ghai 1994
and Yasuaki 1996.
15. On the question of the existence of uniquely Asian values, see
Emmerson 1996.
16. The phrase "West versus the rest," first used by Kishore
Mahbubani (1992), has since been used by some officials and analysts
in the West to depict an Asian threat to Western values and interests.
See, for example, Huntington 1993.
17. Quoted in Mahbubani 1993: 13-14.
18. For an argument to the contrary (why Japan will not become a
superpower), see May 1993-94.
19. For a survey of Asia-Pacific security studies, see Paul Evans 1994.
20. According to Haq 1995, the peace dividend has materialized
primarily in the industrialized countries and to a lesser degree in
selected developing countries in the Middle East and Latin America.
21. On rethinking U.S. security, see, for example, Allison and
Treverton 1992. Several contributors to this volume argue that with
the demise of communism and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the
traditional security of the United Statesdefined as its protection as a
free nation with its funda mental values and institutions intacthas
seldom been so certain. But they argue that new concerns, particularly
"threats" to cherished values from within, demand a redefinition of
America's security. On rethinking Soviet security, see Gorbachev
1987.
22. See, for example, Buzan 1983, 1991; Booth 1991a, 1991b;
Haftendorn 1991; Dalby 1992; Kolodziej 1992a, 1992b; Sorenson
1990; Allison and Treverton 1992; Ullman 1983; Mathews 1989;
Westing 1989; Romm 1993. See also Palme Commission 1982.
23. On conceptual stretching, see Collier and Mahon 1993.
24. Cooperative security has been defined and used in different ways.
See, for example, Carter, Perry, and Steinbruner 1992; Dewitt 1994;
Gareth Evans 1994; and Nolan 1994.
25. On the role of concepts, see Sartori 1984; Collier and Mahon
1993.
26. The term central decision maker was coined by Stephen Krasner
(1978).
27. This discussion of the logical-deductive and empirical-inductive
approaches draws upon Krasner 1978: 35-45.
28. On milieu goals and their distinction from possession goals, see
Wolfers 1962b: 73-75. Milieu goals seek to shape the international
environment in which a state operates to make it more peaceful or
conducive to the pursuit of national


 Page 703
goals. Possession goals, in contrast, include those values that are in
limited supply and can only be held to the exclusion of others.
29. On the role of normative contexts in explaining the differences in
the internal security behavior of Japan and Germany, see Katzenstein
1993. On the role of state structure and normative context in
explaining Japanese security policy, see Katzenstein and Okawara
1993. On the "never again" resolves resulting from the bitter
experience of the Pacific War and their effect on Japanese security
behavior, see Bobrow 1993: 419-21.
30. It should be noted here that the empirical-inductive approach also
has its limitations, including the interpretation of evidence, which is
likely to be conditioned by one's theoretical persuasion.
31. The term judgmental dopes was coined by Harold Garfinkel in
referring to analysts' treatment of the actors' understanding and
reasoning in concrete situations as irrelevant to an analytical approach
to social action. See Heritage 1987: 229.
32. Mutual knowledge is "a knowledge that is shared by all who are
competent to engage in or recognize the appropriate performance of a
social practice or range of practices" (Ira Cohen 1987: 287).
33. Market failure refers to a situation "in which the outcomes of
market mediated interactions are suboptimal, given the utility
functions of actors and resources at their disposal." The structure,
rather than the actors, is viewed as inadequate, and this defect may be
overcome through innovative institution building (Keohane 1984: 82-
83). For a discussion of the distinction between distributional issues
and market failure, see Krasner 1991.
34. The concern that discussions of security tend inevitably to be
narrow underscores David Baldwin's (1995) call for the abolition of
security studies as a subfield and its reintegration into international
politics.
35. Comments by Oran Young in the chapter "Environment and
Security" in Shultz, Godson, and Greenwood 1993: 351.
36. Buzan (1993b) argues that Waltz confuses structure and system.
37. For a discussion of the impact of revolutions on the international
behavior of states, see Walt 1992. Although Walt is a strong
proponent of neorealism, several analysts have noted that his balance-
of-threat argument, as well as his argument of the impact of
revolutions on the international behavior of states, come close to
constructivism.
Chapter 1: Rethinking Security
1. These two versions have many common features, such as state-
centricity, rational behavior, the central role of power (particularly
military power), and self-help. The key difference is that neorealism
claims to be scientific and seeks to explain international politics on
the basis of an anarchic international structure, while political realism,
or realpolitik, emphasizes national interest and power politics, which
are attributed primarily to human nature. Although it has drawn much
criticism and is deeply flawed in several respects (see Keohane
1986a), neorealism claims disciplinary authority (Krause and
Williams 1996) and continues to be the most influential paradigm for
the study of international politics (Kapstein 1995).

 Page 704
2. Buzan, for example, while arguing for a broad conception of
security, also asserts the centrality of neorealist insights to
understanding international politics. "The anarchic context sets the
elemental political conditions in which all meanings of national and
international security have to be constructed" (Buzan 1991: 21-22).
See also Buzan, Jones, and Little 1993.
3. "The people" is one of several features in Buzan's analysis of the
state. See Buzan 1983: chap. 2.
4. Ruggie's primary contention is that the state-centric model is not
useful in detecting incremental systemic changes that may eventually
overwhelm the state. See Ruggie 1993b, 1993c.
5. Paul Taylor argues that regional integration and the state have been
and continue to be mutually supportive, each living off the other. See
Taylor 1991; also Hoffmann 1991: 204-6.
6. This classification of capabilities is that of Joel S. Migdal (1988).
Migdal's argument, however, is that developing states are weak in
terms of these capabilities. This is still the case in most African
countries but less so in Asia and Latin America. There is the
possibility that in a post-Cold War setting the state in many African
countries may further weaken or even disintegrate.
7. This has led Waever et al. (1993) to argue the case for treating
society as a security referent.
8. On nationalism and international conflict, see Van Evera (1994); on
revolution and international behavior, see Walt (1992).
9. An early work on internal war is that of Eckstein (1964).
10. On the various components of national identity, see Smith, 1991:
15.
11. The terms nation and state have been defined and used in many
ways, often making for confusion and difficulty, and posing
considerable obstacles to theorizing (Benjamin and Duvall 1985;
Ferguson and Mansbach 1988: 111-42). Nation here refers to a unit of
population that possesses a common heritage, a desire to live together
in a community, and a will to preserve the inheritance that has been
handed down (Renan 1970: 408-9). The identity of a nation may be
constructed along the lines of a civic-territorial model or an
ethnoreligious one (Smith 1991, Ra'anan 1990). State refers to a
"structure of domination and coordination including a coercive
apparatus and the means to administer society and to extract resources
from it" (Fishman 1990: 428). This definition of state is concerned
with organization and process of governance, as well as the principles
that underlie them, not the units of action, decision, or policy. The
latter is more accurately captured by government which is a key actor
in domestic and international politics (Benjamin and Duvall 1985:
27).
12. Scheff (1994) and Brown (1996) are useful here.
13. On anarchy as the ordering principle, see Waltz 1979: 88-93. On
the meanings of anarchy, see Milner 1993.
14. Wolfers (1962c: 154, 157) also suggests that security may be
treated as an intermediate rather than an ultimate goal and as a means
to ultimate ends, such as the promotion of human values (e.g.,
liberty). In this formulation, security need not always be the highest
goal; it may at times be compromised in the pursuit of some other
equally or more important value.
15. Neoliberalism accepts that states are the principal actors; they act
rationally on the basis of self-interest; relative capabilities remain
important;


 Page 705
and states must rely on themselves to realize gains from
cooperation (Keohane 1993: 271).
16. Hedley Bull and Adam Watson (1984: 1) define international
society as "a group of states (or, more generally, a group of
independent political communities) which not merely form a system,
in the sense that the behavior of each is a necessary factor in the
calculations of others, but also have established by dialogue and
consent common rules and institutions for the conduct of their
relations, and recognize their common interest in maintaining these
arrangements."
17. For a relatively recent version of commercial liberalism, see
Rosecrance 1986.
18. A similar argument is made in Goldgeier and McFaul 1992.
19. The thesis of democratic peace has been contested by the realist
school (Farber and Gowa 1995; Layne 1994; Oren 1996; Spiro 1996).
The challenge has focused on the lack of causal logic of the
democratic peace argument, the war-proneness of democracies, the
claim that democratic peace is myth, alternative explanations as to
why war has not broken out among democracies, and the assertion
that there is no assurance that states will become or remain
democracies. For responses to this critique, see the contributions by
Bruce Russett and Michael Doyle in Brown, Lynn-Jones, and Miller
1996.
20. For a good discussion of economic security, see Buzan 1991:
chap. 6.
21. See, for example, Neville Brown 1989, 1992; Buzan 1991: 19-20,
13134, 256-61; Gleick 1990, 1991, 1993; MacNeill, Winsemius, and
Yakushiji 1991: 52-73; Mathews 1989: 162-77; Myers 1986, 1989:
23-41; Renner 1989.
22. Drawing on the analogy of atomic energy and how nuclear fission
became the dominant military, geopolitical, and even psychological
and social force, Mathews (1989: 177) asserts that "in the same vein,
the driving force of the coming decade may well be environmental
change."
23. Senator Sam Nunn's justification of the environment as a key
national security objective in which the Department of Defense has an
important role could be viewed as an example of this. See Butts 1993:
iii.
24. For the uses of economic power to achieve foreign policy goals,
see Knorr 1975: chap. 6, 134-65.
25. This is part of Buzan's definition of economic security. See Buzan
1991:19.
26. On the security dilemma, see Hertz 1950: 157-80; Jervis 1976: 72-
76.
27. Institutionalists and constructivists, however, would argue that
even if power and egotistic reasons are important at the outset, the
process of cooperation may reconstitute identities and interests in
such a way as to create new intersubjective understandings and
commitments, which may make the institution endure even in the
absence of the original rationale (Wendt 1992: 417). Thus, the
disappearance of the Soviet threat does not necessarily lead to the end
of NATO. If the process of cooperation has contributed to the creation
of a European identity, and national interests are now defined in terms
of this collective identity, then NATO may continue to exist.
Although ASEAN is not an alliance like NATO, a similar explanation
can be advanced with respect to its vitality after the Cambodian
conflict. Many argued that with the termination of the Cambodian
conflict, the association would come apart. Others set about to find
new rationales, such as economic cooperation. However, the process
of

 Page 706
cooperation over a twenty-year period contributed to a new
intersubjective understanding among the ASEAN countries and the
creation of an ASEAN identity that has become a factor in the
formulation of the national interests of member states. This may, in
part, explain the continued existence and in some ways the
strengthening of the association in the post-Cambodia phase.
28. Collective security is a case of multilateralism as defined by John
Ruggie (1993a).
29. Charles L. Glaser (1994) argues that, contrary to the conventional
wisdom, realism is not pessimistic regarding cooperation. He holds
that under a wide range of conditions adversaries can best achieve
their security goals through cooperative policies, not competitive
ones.
30. Joseph Grieco, however, is less dismissive of institutions. While
still claiming the superiority of neorealism, he accepts that
neoliberalism may help explain some concerns of states, such as
cheating, and believes that realism needs to develop a theory of
international institutions (Grieco 1993).
31. John C. Matthews (1996) argues against the distinction between
security and economic realms. According to him, it is not the sector
that determines the propensity to cooperate, but the anticipated
cumulative effects on future advantages and state behavior.
32. On the conditions for security regimes, see Jervis 1983. On
security cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union,
see George, Farley, and Dallin 1988.
33. On reciprocity, see Keohane 1986b: 1-27.
34. The following discussion draws from and builds upon Wendt
1992: 399-401.
35. The distinction between defense and offense is a problematic but
still useful one.
36. On mature anarchy, see Buzan 1983.
37. On complex interdependence, see Keohane and Nye 1977: chap.
2.
38. The term deep structure relates to the ordering principle of the
international system and was coined by Ruggie. The term
distributional structure relates to the distribution of capabilities
among states and was coined by Buzan. See Ruggie 1986: 135; Buzan
1993b: 54.
39. Although realists assume that states will act rationally on the basis
of cost-benefit calculus in choosing strategies, they disagree on how
states will behave. Robert Gilpin (1981) argues that states will seek to
expand their power until marginal costs exceed marginal benefits. He
holds that the contemporary international system has been witness to a
succession of hegemonic powers that seek to organize international
relations in terms of their respective security and economic interests.
Waltz, as noted here, contends that the anarchic system encourages
balancing (Waltz 1979: 126-27, chap. 8). His contention is based on
the belief that power is not an end in itself but a means to the primary
concern of states, which is to ensure survival and maintain their
position. The difference between Gilpin and Waltz stems largely from
their different assumptions about power. According to Gilpin, as well
as the earlier realists, maximization of power is a key goal of the state;
Waltz views power essentially as a means to ensure the survival and
position of the state in the international system. Despite this
difference, power is central to both theses.

 Page 707
40. Constructivism is one of the family of critical theories that also
includes postmodernism, poststructuralism, neo-Marxism, and
feminism. The term constructivism was coined by Nicholas Onuf
(1989). Constructivism has also been termed reflectivism by Robert
O. Keohane (1988). The discussion of constructivism in this chapter
draws mainly upon the work of Alexander Wendt (1987, 1992,1995).
41. These are Giddens's phrases (1994: 69).
42. One such debate has focused on predicting the future of Europe,
with the neorealists forecasting an unstable multipolar Europe and the
liberal institutionalists forecasting a more stable Europe rooted in a
web of institutions. See, for example, Hoffmann, Keohane, and
Mearsheimer 1990; Mearsheimer 1990; Russett, Risse-Kappen, and
Mearsheimer 1991. See also Keohane 1993: 284-91. For another set
of exchanges, see International Security 20, no. 1 (1995).
43. On pluralistic security community, see Deutsch 1957.
44. For a realist critique of constructivism, see Mearsheimer 1995a:
34-47, 1995b: 90-92. For a liberal institutionalist critique, see
Keohane 1988.
45. A similar point is made by Nye 1988; Baldwin 1993:22-24; and
Keohane 1993. For a comprehensive attempt to modify and
supplement neorealism, see Buzan, Jones, and Little 1993.
Chapter 2: International Politics In Asia
1. This discussion of continental and maritime Southeast Asia draws
extensively from Tate 1971.
2. The conference confirmed the "sovereignty, the independence and
the territorial and administrative integrity of China" (Fairbank,
Reischauer, and Craig 1978: 694) with intent to prevent the further
dismemberment of China.
3. For text of the Yalta agreement, see Daniels 1984: 134.
4. The specific issues of contention included the use of bases on
Japanese soil for military operations in other countries, the
unrestricted freedom for the United States to introduce any weapon
system (including nuclear weapons) into Japan, the provision that
allowed the United States to intervene in large-scale domestic
disturbances, lack of a firm U.S. commitment to the defense of Japan,
U.S. veto over Japanese security arrangements with other countries,
and lack of provision for termination of the treaty (Sneider 1982: 26-
27).
5. Japanese defense efforts during the 1952-70 period were grounded
in a series of reinterpretations of the peace constitution, as well as a
series of statements of principles, such as the 1967 "three nonnuclear
principles" articulated by Premier Sato.
6. The PRC initially turned to the United States, despite American
support for the Nationalist government during the civil war (Lach and
Wehrle 1975: 48). The American response, however, was at first
uncertain and then negative, so the PRCagain despite the Soviet
dealings with the Nationalist government during the civil warreached
an understanding and alliance with the Soviet Union.
7. Some Indians have argued that such assistance was more rhetoric
than real, and that the United States and the United Kingdom
exploited India's vulnerability and brought pressure to bear on India to
negotiate on Kashmir while overlooking the improvement in Sino-
Pakistan relations.

 Page 708
8. These premises were the junior-partner status of Japan, its security
dependence on the United States, and the one-way U.S. commitment
to the security of Japan without reciprocity.
9. India was a lone partial exception. It played significant diplomatic
roles in the Korean and Indochina conflicts, supported decolonization
(particularly the anticolonial struggle in Indonesia), and recognized
the PRC very early on, arguing for its inclusion in the United Nations.
But this did not significantly affect the course of developments in
Asia and in any case was short-lived.
10. The hope was that if the Soviet Union and China could persuade
the DPRK to give up its militant policy, then the ROK would be
willing to discuss the North Korean demands for withdrawal of U.S.
troops from South Korea as well as disarmament, thereby breaking
the vicious circle.
11. These include the 1972 Simla agreement, the 1988 agreement on
the prohibition of attack against nuclear installations and facilities, the
1991 agreement on advance notification of military exercises, and the
1992 declaration on the complete prohibition of chemical weapons.
12. Vietnam is required to comply with the provisions of AFTA by
2006; Burma and Laos have until 2008.
13. The first meeting among the foreign secretaries of the seven South
Asian states was held in 1981. However, it was the 1983 foreign
ministers' meeting that adopted the Declaration on South Asian
Regional Cooperation. The charter for SAARC was adopted in the
first summit meeting held in 1985.
Chapter 3: China
1. Theoretically, the developed socialist states in Eastern Europe
should also be included in the second world. Given their close ties
with Moscow, however, Mao seldom counted on them as a potential
ally against the Soviet hegemon.
2. John Garver identified five categories, not three: (1) deterring
superpower attack against China, (2) defending Chinese territory
against encroachment, (3) bringing "lost" territory under Chinese
control, (4) enhancing regional influence, and (5) enhancing China's
global stature (Garver 1993: 253-54).
3. The border clash with the Soviet Union, for example, is an
extension of the domestic policy of opposing "Soviet revisionism." In
addition, Mao expected to restore domestic order and build up his
personal prestige, which had suffered from the nationwide chaos
caused by Cultural Revolution.
4. The "one superpower," of course, refers to the United States; the
"several major powers" include China, Japan, Russia, and the
European Union.
5. With the normalization of relations with Hanoi in late 1991, Beijing
held between 1992 and 1994 that China's security environment was in
the best shape since 1949. As of 1995, however, due to adjustments in
the East Asian security strategy of the United States, rising tensions in
Sino-Japanese relations, and growing momentum for independence on
Taiwan, Beijing's concern over its security environment had increased
considerably.
6. The term peaceful evolution was coined by former U.S. secretary of
state (1953-59) John F. Dulles when he envisioned the communist
states gradually deviating from the socialist path and integrating into
the capitalist system. Beijing

 Page 709
uses this term to refer to a Western approach that employs
nonmilitary means to secure the subversion of the socialist system.
7. Between 1955 and 1979, Taiwan was a security ally of the United
States under the U.S.-Taiwan Defense Treaty. The Treaty was
terminated on January 1, 1979, when Beijing and Washington
normalized their relations, and the U.S. military personnel stationed in
Taiwan pulled out three months thereafter.
8. Here bourgeois liberalism refers to a political tendency that rejects
the guidance of the official ideology and negates the leadership of the
CCP.
9. Since 1995 a discussion has been carried on among China's
strategic analysts and the international studies community over the
nature of U.S. policy toward China. Opinions include engagement,
soft containment, or selective containment; the mainstream tends to
identify a dual strategy of engagement plus containment.
10. This point is taken from an internally circulated research report.
11. The revised criminal law adopted in 1997 changed the name of
"counterrevolutionary guilt" to "guilt of endangering national
security."
12. This law stipulates (article 2) that "the land territory of the
People's Republic of China consists of the mainland and its offshore
islands, Taiwan and various affiliated islands including Diaoyu Island,
the Penhu Islands, the Dongsha Islands, the Xisha Islands, the
Zhongsha Islands, the Nansha Islands and other islands that belong to
the PRC."
13. The PRC's national defense budget in 1979 and 1989 was 22.266
billion RMB yuan and 25.147 billion RMB yuan, respectivelya net
increase of 2.881 billion RMB yuan, or 12.9 percent. However, given
the high inflation rate brought about by the rapid economic growth in
the 1980s, the actual military spending in 1989 was 25 percent less
than in 1979. See U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency 1995:
Table 1.
Since 1989 the annual defense budget and inflation rate have been
as follows:
Year Budget Percent Inflation
(billion RMB) Increase Rate
1989 25.15 15.4 18.0%
1990 29.03 15.4 3.1
1991 33.03 13.8 3.4
1992 37.79 14.4 6.4
1993 42.58 12.7 14.7
1994 52.04 22.2 23.0
1995 63.97 22.9 15.0
1996 71.50 11.8 6.1
1997 80.57 12.7 6.0 (predicted)
Sources: China Statistical Yearbook, 1990-96; relevant reports in
People's Daily in corresponding years.

14. For instance, China's official figure for its defense budget in 1993
was $7.4 billion. According to the London-based International
Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), however, the figure could be as
high as $21.76 billion, while the Stockholm International Peace
Research Institute's (SIPRI) estimate is $37 billion, and the U.S. Arms
Control and Disarmament Agency's figure is $56.2

 Page 710
billion. For further information, see IISS 1993; SIPRI 1994; and
U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency 1995.
15. Logically, bilateralism also prevents Chinanot just the United
Statesfrom mobilizing its international resources. However, given the
reality that the United States possesses more international resources
than China does and that multilateralism would only serve to widen
the gap in the power balance, bilateral dealings are more preferable to
China.
16. PRC leaders have suggested on various occasions that China is
likely to use force against Taiwan in two scenarios: Taiwan formally
declares independence, and foreign countries intervene.
17. Concerned over the island's increasing economic dependence on
the mainland, Taipei in recent years has been trying to tighten its
policy on investment in the mainland (Tamura 1996).
Chapter 4: India
1. G. S. Bajpai, India's first secretary general of external affairs,
argued that nonalignment is vital and that in a world of power politics
armed force is essential (Kavic 1967: 39-40). As early as June 1946,
Nehru noted that if India were attacked it would defend itself by all
the means available to it. Kavic (1967: 27) notes that this statement
contains "the clear implication that such means did not exclude atomic
bombs."
2. The Panchashila or Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence
between India and China (1954) are mutual respect for territorial
integrity and sovereignty, mutual nonaggression, mutual
noninterference in internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and
peaceful coexistence.
3. Nehru had come up with something like the idea of nonalignment
before the Cold War. See Damodaran 1995.
4. This issue is cited in virtually every annual report of the Ministry of
Defense since 1990-91.
5. See, for instance, the reference to Nehru's dismissal of a swap in
Kavic 1967: 68.
6. The migration issue is referred to in the Ministry of External
Affairs annual reports. See, for instance, Annual Report 1992-93, p.
17, Annual Report 199293 (Hindi version), p. 2, and Annual Report
1994-95, p. 3. See also brief remarks of K. P. S. Gill (1994: 125). Gill
is the police officer widely credited with ending the Sikh militancy. In
addition, see Narayanan 1994: 43-45. Narayanan was director of the
Intelligence Bureau, Government of India, from 1987 to 1992.
7. Narayanan (1994) estimates "several millions" of Bangladeshi
migrants. The "decadal growth [in migration] in many border districts
was nearly 6 to 7% higher than that of the rest of the country" (p. 44).
8. For details see Heimsath and Mansingh 1971 and Brown 1963:
188-203.
9. The best dissection of this episode is Mansingh and Levine 1989:
41-44. See also Mohanty 1988: 77-78. On China's reactions to the
1986-87 episodes, see Klintworth 1992: 103-4. Klintworth claims that
China calculated it could not take on the modernized Indian army.
10. Mohanty (1988: 78) suggests that China brought its strength in
Tibet up to twenty divisions during this period.

 Page 711
11. See ''Text of India-China Agreements," Times of India, Sept. 9,
1993.
12. There is a growing literature on the Indian Ocean Rim and the
possibility of cooperation. See, among others, K. R. Singh 1995 and
Ramamurthi 1994.
13. Over several decades these concessions, according to a close
observer of the scene, have included "creating new ethno-political
territories..., giving tribes the legal rights to mineral resources and
offering protection, such as requiring inner-line entry permits and
prohibiting outsiders from buying properties in tribal regions."
Weapons were not "surrendered" but "handed over" to be stored in
safe houses, often under the eye of peace councils led by tribal elders.
In striking a deal the government generally "avoided claims of
victory" and the militants "did not have to admit defeat." See Gupta
1995: 27.
14. See Dixit 1994: 932 for a recent foreign secretary's views along
these lines.
15. Once again, this view is well illustrated by Dixit (1994: 933-36).
16. Ministry of Defense 1995, p. 2.
17. For opposition to multinationals see Kurien 1994: 116-18 and
Initiative for National Renewal 1995: 27-36.
18. For explication of the term "hiding," see Schroeder 1986.
19. The United States, as an infant republic, also pursued a strategy of
nonalignment in effect; see Damodaran 1995. For the terms
"international society" and "society of states" see Bull 1977. For an
Indian view of nonalignment and its past and present contribution to
international society, see Damodaran 1995 and Rajan 1995.
20. Interviews with Indian diplomats in New Delhi.
21. The Iran-China-India triangle has been widely speculated upon.
Narasimha Rao's visit to Teheran in January 1995 apparently
"coincided" with the presence of the Chinese foreign minister, Qian
Qichen. See Katyal 1995.
22. On the India-Russia-China triangle see Kurien 1994: 126. This
would be a giant trading bloc. On an Israel-Southeast Asia-India front
see Karnad 1994: 53-58. This is proposed as an anti-China, anti-
(Islamic) fundamentalist configuration. On the Asian trinity see
Wilson 1994.
23. Prime Minister Narasimha Rao on several occasions since the
middle of 1995 has repeated that India will continue with R and D and
production of key military itemsthe Arjun Main Battle Tank, the Light
Combat Aircraft, the Prithvi missile. He has also stressed that India
will keep the nuclear option open. See, most recently, "India Will
Keep Its N-Option Open: PM," The Pioneer, Jan. 26, 1996. The report
explains that Narasimha Rao made the remarks "in the context of the
increasing American pressure on India not to deploy the indigenously
developed missile Prithvi and sign the non-proliferation treaty on
nuclear weapons." U.S. arms aid to Pakistan under the Hank Brown
Amendment was also mentioned in Narasimha Rao's statement. The
successor United Front government has reaffirmed Narasimha Rao's
posture.
24. The treaty with Bangladesh comes up for renewal in 1997.
Indications are that it will not be renewed.
25. The term "India Doctrine" comes from an article by Bhabani Sen
Gupta, an influential analyst and columnist. See Gupta 1983: 20.
26. On India's involvement with regionalism see Sisir Gupta 1964 and
Muni


 Page 712
and Muni 1984. Muni and Muni take the story from the 1960s to
the beginnings of SAARC in the early 1980s.
27. Thus Nehru said: "India is going to be and is bound to be a
country that counts for something in world affairs, not I hope in the
military sense, but in many other senses which are more important
and effective in the end." See Nehru 1983a: 47.
28. The public statements of the four initiatives as well as the Rajiv
Gandhi Action Plan are reproduced in the Rajiv Gandhi Memorial
Initiative (1993).
29. On the Sri Lanka episode see Chari 1994 and Muni 1993.
30. On the 1987 exercise that escalated into an India-Pakistan crisis
see Bajpai et al. 1995.
31. General K. Sundarji, India's best-known "thinking" general, has
noted that India should be in a position to deter a U.S.-led coalition of
the type Iraq faced in 1991. This requires that India have a nuclear
capability. In Sundarji 1993 (68-73) he sets forth the need for both a
conventional and a nuclear capability to deter the United States.
32. Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, the head of the missile program, is
widely credited with the success of the various projects under his
charge.
33. Joshi (1992: 83-4) provides details on the kinds of items India will
need over the next 10 to 15 years.
34. Sidhu (1996: 185) argues that in the missile program India has
anticipated problems and will not be affected by international
sanctions. There is a hawkish view in India that sanctions, denials,
and a growing feeling of international isolation after the CTBT could,
or should, push India to test. See, for instance, the story filed by Asha
Chawla (1996), which quotes Indian strategic commentators to this
effect.
35. A revealing story was filed by Krishna Prasad (1995) in which Dr.
Gopalakrishnan of AERB is quoted as saying: "Unless the viewpoints
of the Planning Commission and the Finance Ministry change
considerably, NPC will find it tough to survive comfortably in the
near future and come out with a viable business enterprise in the long
run." While the nuclear program requires Rs. 5,000 crores during the
Eighth Plan (1992-97), the government sanctioned only Rs. 400
crores.
36. Joshi (1992: 85) reports that R and D increased from 2.3 percent
of total defense outlays in 1982-83 to 4.9 percent in 1990-91. J. Singh
(1992: 59) reports a high figure of 4.6 percent between 1983-84 and
1992-93.
37. See Perkovich 1993 for a useful statement about the plausibility of
the Indian and Pakistani nuclear postures and how they could be made
more stable. Burns (1995) takes off from Perkovich and shows how
various technologies and other measures might be used to give
operational significance to a nonweaponized posture.
38. For the opposite argument see Sahni 1996: 98.
39. Sahni (1996: 99-100) argues that, overall, the cost of
nuclearization is much greater than is usually conceded by nuclear
advocates. K. Subrahmanyam estimates a minimal deterrent at $3
billion (in 1994 prices) and Vijai Nair comes up with $2.2 billion for a
triad capability.
40. Sahni (1996: 102) notes that moral costs must be reckoned.
41. Narayanan (1994: 46) notes that the pressure to liberalize the
Indian


 Page 713
economy "came from a technocratic elite and was not the result of a
widespread public demand, not even of the political parties." See
also Initiative for National Renewal 1995: 31.
42. See, for instance, Narasimha Rao, "World Summit for Social
Development: Speech of Prime Minister of India, Copenhagen,
Denmark, 11th March 1995," mimeo, p. 4, and Narasimha Rao, Prime
Minister Narasimha Rao Visits USA, p. 4.
43. Both communities harbor a minority sensibility, a sense of siege.
Although Hindus recognize that they are numerically superior, they
see the demographic balance as changing in favor of Muslims.
Moreover, they see "Hindu" India as being surrounded by
Muslimsfrom the Middle East and North Africa at one end to
Southeast Asia at the other. Gupta (1995: 15-17) too makes this point.
Muslims, by contrast, are a numerical minority and look with
apprehension at the consolidation of Hindus under the Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and the Shiv Sena.
44. These forces include the National Security Guard (NSG), the
Rashtriya Rifles, the Border Security Force (BSF), the Central
Reserve Police Force (CRPF), the Assam Rifles, the Indo-Tibetan
Border Police (ITBP), and the Nagaland Hill Police. See Gupta 1995:
35-36.
45. In 1986-87, an Indian military exercise near Pakistan's borders led
to a confrontation in January 1987. Indian moves appeared
deliberately ambiguous and were seen as a warning to Pakistan
regarding its interference in Punjab. In early 1990, Indian troop
reinforcements in Punjab, Rajasthan, and Kashmir led to another
dangerous standoff. This had been preceded by a number of
statements warning Pakistan about its role in Kashmir. On the events
of 1987 see Bajpai et al. 1995.
Chapter 5: Japan
1. For a recent example of such a study see Katzenstein and Okawara
1993.
2. Article 9 states: "Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based
on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a
sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of
settling international disputes. In order to accomplish the aim of the
preceding paragraph [of Article 9], land, sea, and air forces, as well as
other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of
belligerency of the state will not be recognized." Although most
Japanese constitutional experts read Article 9 as prohibiting all
armaments including the Self-Defense Forces (SDF), the
government's interpretation has been that the stipulation does not deny
the right of self-defense, which is innate in any independent country,
and therefore does not prohibit armaments if they are maintained for
purposes of defending Japanese territory and not as a means of
settling international disputes.
3. Asahi Shinbun, Oct. 27, 1995 (evening edition).
4. Since then Japan has decided to transfer to the United States those
technologies relevant for portable surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), for
the construction and remodeling of U.S. naval vessels, for the next-
generation support fighter, for the digital flight control system to be
installed on P-3C

 Page 714
antisubmarine patrol aircraft, and for joint research on ducted
rocket engines (Defense Agency 1995a: 74).
5. The summary that follows owes much to an excellent review in Eto
and Yamamoto 1991.
6. The following information is based on unpublished papers provided
by the Japanese government.
7. The preparatory meeting of the forum was held in December 1993
in Tokyo, where the forum's theme was summarized in three points:
transnational projects; projects with implications spreading across
national boundaries; and projects that address issues common to at
least two of the three countries. Its first ministerial meeting, held in
Tokyo in February 1995, was attended by representatives from 25
countries and 8 international institutions.
8. Government pronouncements in the National Diet in March 1969,
October 1972, and September 1985 (Boei Handbook 1995: 389-90).
9. Article 6 of the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security
Between Japan and the United States (June 23, 1960).
10. Government pronouncements in the National Diet in December
1969 and October 1981 (Boei Handbook 1995: 399).
11. In the general elections in 1993, the LDP gained 223 seats, losing
the majority for the first time out of the 511 seats in the Lower House,
whereas the SDP lost almost half its seats, dropping from 134 to 70.
12. Yomiuri Shinbun, Nov. 3, 1994; the English translation is from
Yomiuri Shinbun.
13. "Yomiuri Poll," This Is Yomiuri, June 1995, p. 149.
Chapter 6: North Korea
1. See also the spirited exchange of views by Donald Gregg and
Kathleen Bailey before the House of Representatives in "The Security
Situation on the Korean Peninsula," Joint Hearing Before the
Subcommittee on International Security, International Organizations,
and Human Rights and the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific of
the Committee on Foreign Affairs (Washington, D.C.: Government
Printing Office, 1994).
2. For a good review of this literature see Roy 1994.
3. The consequences of this conflict apply to South Korea as well.
Because of the North, politics in the South remains restricted to a
right-center spectrum, because any labor party or leftist party is
immediately branded as "pro-North." Thus politics in the South
remains truncated and election contests are almost like primaries, in
which the eventual Southern leader goes against the true leftist party,
that in the North. This division has economic as well as political
implications. Much of South Korea's tremendous economic
development can be traced to decisions taken for the purpose of
winning the contest with the North.
4. From 1985 to 1989 North Korea's GDP expanded by an estimated 2
percent a year compared to 10.4 percent for South Korea; see Asia
Yearbook 1991: 6.
5. There is no shortage of rumors about Kim Jong Il: that in the late
1950s he sneaked into Osaka to receive mental treatment; that he went
in disguise to East Germany to study; that he has never left the
country, except to visit China, because of his terrible foreign language
skills. His brother, Kim Pyong II, is said

 Page 715
to be much more worldly and competent. Thus rumors abound that
there is "palace intrigue" within the Kim clan.
6. House Subcommittee of Committee on Appropriations, "DOD
Appropriations 1993" (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing
Office, 1992), p. 679.
7. "Investigation of Korean-American Relations," (part 4, 1978), p.
37. Cited in C.-J. Lee and Sato 1982: 44.
8. Many nations, including the United States, have attempted to
dethrone a leader as a cheap means of effecting a coup. Examples
include the Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba and the 1986 bombing of
Muammar Qaddafi's residence in Libya. In both instances the United
States disliked the leader but considered the costs of a total war too
high.
9. There are exceptions to my argument, and I should note them here.
The most obvious exception was the bombing of KAL flight 007 in
1987, which certainly constituted violence against the people of South
Korea. However, in general North Korea has not used this type of
terrorism against the South.
10. Painted on the top of the Yongbyon facilities in huge letters is the
slogan charyok kaengsaeng ("independence" or "self-reliance").
Chapter 7: South Korea
1. See Wendt (1992, 1995) for the identity dimension of security.
Alagappa (Chapter 1, this volume) neatly summarizes the
constructivist perspective, which sees security issues in terms of
intersubjectivity involving identity and structuration.
2. Buguk gangbyong can be seen as a Japanese colonial legacy. Since
the Meiji Restoration, the idea of "rich nation, strong army" (fukoku
kyohei, the Japanese pronunciation of the same Chinese characters)
served as the ideology of national governance in Japan. See Samuels
(1994).
3. In the semantics of the Korean language, state security (kukga
anbo) is the equivalent of national security in the ordinary use of the
term, whereas national security (minjok anbo) is a more
comprehensive concept that encompasses the security of the entire
Korean nation including the North, the South, and overseas Koreans.
The semantic complexity arises from the fact that one nation is
divided into two sovereign states.
4. It is estimated that about 30 percent of North Korea's people are
classified as beneficiaries of the Kim Jong Il regime. Reunification by
absorption would make them ultimate losers. Thus they might seek to
resist the takeover rather than yield to the South Korean government.
5. The Ministry of National Defense has undertaken an active
campaign to inform the general public of the new sources of
insecurity. The campaign aims at achieving two objectives. One is to
alert the general public; the other is to use the threats as an excuse to
demand an increased share of the defense budget. Since the late
1980s, its annual Defense White Paper as well as other publications
have consistently emphasized the new dimension of regional threats.
Its portrayal of Japan as a potentially dangerous regional actor once
elicited an official protest from the Japanese government.
6. Han's resignation was just the tip of the iceberg. Conservative and
progressive forces have engaged in intense ideological and political
debates since the

 Page 716
democratic opening in 1987. The debates have been greatly
influenced by the nature of inter-Korean relations. A series of
imprudent policy measures taken by the North have increasingly
isolated the progressive forces and precipitated the revival of a
conservative ideological trend in the South. Mass media have also
played a significant role in crafting this social mood (see Moon
1996a: chap. 5).
7. A most telling instance can be found in the general election in
1996. A series of political scandals put the ruling New Korea Party in
a difficult position in the election campaign. However, North Korea's
provocative behavior along the DMZ immediately before the election
turned voters conservative and helped the ruling party win the election
against all odds. Seoul's mass media said that a bukpung (wind from
the north) had saved the ruling party from an electoral disaster.
8. Several salient issues have demonstrated the severity of interagency
rivalry: linkage versus delinkage of the nuclear issue and inter-Korean
economic cooperation (NUB and the Ministry of Finance and
Economy [MOFE] vs. ANSP, MOFA, and MND), shipments of rice
to the North for humanitarian reasons (the Blue House, NUB, and
MOFE vs. ANSP), a feud over the initiative within the Korea Energy
Development Organization (MOFA vs. NUB), and soft landing versus
crash landing (NUB and MOFA vs. ANSP and MND). The fact that
deputy prime ministers were reshuffled six times under the Kim
government underscores the intensity of the rivalry (see Moon 1996a:
chap. 5).
9. In its dealings with North Korea the United States has been deeply
divided. While the State Department has advocated a soft-line
posture, the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence
Agency have favored a hard-line approach. But the Clinton
administration has sided with the State Department, making the soft-
line posture the official policy of the United States.
10. The South Korean government has supported the Conference on
Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific (CSCAP), a civilian forum
for security cooperation. Its Korean steering committee is presently
housed at the Institute for Foreign and National Security Affairs, an
official think tank of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It has also been
sending its delegates to another regular nongovernmental forum on
security cooperation organized by the Institute of Global Conflict and
Cooperation of the University of California.
11. The incursion of the North Korean submarine into South Korean
waters on September 18, 1996, and subsequent unrest underscore this
point. After almost two months of intensive search involving 80,000
regular troops and tens of thousands of home reserve and civil defense
forces, 13 of the reported 26 North Korean infiltrators were killed in
gunfights, 11 committed suicide, and one was captured. Fifteen South
Korean civilians and servicemen were killed in the pursuit. Economic
losses in the operation are estimated to be more than 300 billion won
(approximately $360 million). Mass media reporting of such incidents
further heightens the sensationalism of military threats (Munwha Ilbo,
Nov. 6, 1996).
Chapter 8: Taiwan
1. Later the constitution was amended so that the president was
elected by popular vote, not by the National Assembly.

 Page 717
2. The Republic of China also officially claims Outer Mongolia as
part of its territory.
3. The disposition of the offshore islands controlled by the ROC has
been a source of controversy because they were not among the areas
occupied by Japan from 1895 to 1945 and are considered by both the
mainland and the Taiwanese governments to be part of Fujian
province. In its most recent campaign platform, however, the
opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) affirmed that these
islands were included in its conception of an independent Taiwan. See
DPP Central Headquarters Election Strategy Committee 1995: 35.
4. The latter group does not include the small numbers of recent
arrivals from mainland China. An additional ethnic group consists of
the aboriginal peoples who make up about 1.7 percent of Taiwan's
population.
5. Hakka are another Chinese ethnic group distinguished by dialect
and other customs. Originally from north China, they are now found
scattered throughout south and southwest China. Most Hakka in
Taiwan (including the current president, Lee Teng-hui) are descended
from ancestors who emigrated from Guangdong province prior to the
twentieth century and are thus, along with immigrants from southern
Fujian, included in the category benshengren.
6. The only exception is with regard to territorial disputes between the
PRC and other countries, such as those over the Senkaku Islands or
the islands of the South China Sea, where the ROC's claim that the
territories have traditionally been part of China has tended to support
that of the PRC (although Taipei argues that they belong to the ROC,
not the PRC). See "Chinese First" 1996: 13.
7. The KMT argued that these policies were necessary for national
security because political instability in Taiwan made it vulnerable to
the PRC. Though this may have been true, there is little doubt that the
same policies would have been pursued whether or not national
security was truly affected. As argued earlier, it was only when these
policies began to work to the detriment of the regime's security that
they were changed.
8. With the growth of commercial ties since 1987, the PRC is also
believed to be exploiting the economic interests of Taiwanese
businesspeople to influence Taiwan's policy toward the mainland, and
there is speculation about how many votes in Taiwan's elective bodies
are "owned" by the PRC. See Chen 1992: 2; Yang 1994: 4.
9. The mainland took just 2 percent of Taiwan's exports in 1986, and
there was no significant Taiwanese investment on the mainland prior
to 1987 (Liang'an jingji tongji yuebao 1995: 24, 28, 57; Council for
Economic Planning and Development 1995: 192).
10. There also has been suspicion that the mainland government is
involved in encouraging illegal immigration to Taiwan (Central News
Agency 1990: 44).
11. Private conversation with an agent of the ROC Ministry of Justice
Investigation Bureau.
12. The existence of serious ethnic conflict, however, would mean
that the value of the state as currently constituted was questioned by at
least one significant domestic group.
13. In East Asia, only North Korea and Singapore spend a higher
proportion of GDP on defense (Stockholm International Peace
Research Institute 1994:

 Page 718
560. In dollar terms, this make Taiwan's defense expenditure
nominally higher than the PRC's, although mainland China's actual
defense expenditure is widely believed to be several times the
official figure (International Institute for Strategic Studies 1995:
173).
14. Private conversation with a U.S. military official.
15. Taiwan was the seventh-largest trading partner of the United
States in 1994 (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1995: 819-22).
16. Thus Taiwan's dependence on the United States for its military
security against the PRC has ironically contributed to Taiwan's
becoming more vulnerable to the PRC economically.
17. It should be noted, however, that democratization has complicated
other areas of Taiwan's relations with the United States by giving the
public a voice in matters, such as economic security, that affect them
more immediately. As a result, Taiwan's leaders have become more
resistant to U.S. pressure in bilateral disputes over nonmilitary issues.
18. Those efforts succeeded, for example, in 1992, when France
agreed to sell Taiwan 60 Mirage 2000 fighter aircraft.
19. Taiwan is the most important source of direct foreign investment
for several Southeast Asian countries. Total Taiwanese investment in
Southeast Asia exceeds $15 billion (NDREG 1994: 65).
20. Hong Kong is also a member of all three organizations. Taiwan
and China currently hold observer status in the WTO.
21. The ban on direct links also gives Taiwan a bargaining chip in its
efforts to persuade the PRC to renounce the use of force against
Taiwan (China Times 1991: 2).
22. Taiwanese individuals in their personal capacities have been
allowed to participate in the working groups of CSCAP.
23. Similarly, it was Taiwan's linguistic and cultural relationships
with the mainland that made the mainland such an attractive
investment destination.
24. The one exception is the disputed Senkaku Islands, held by Japan
but claimed by the ROC (as well as the PRC).
Chapter 9: Bangladesh
1. This should be understood in the sense that a threat to security is
not merely a conventional military concept. For discussion on the
subject see Kolodziej 1992b; Iftekharuzzaman 1992; Buzan 1991;
Walt 1991; Sayigh 1990; Sorenson 1990; Alagappa 1987a;
McNamara 1986; and Krasner 1983a.
2. Government of Bangladesh, Ministry of Law and Parliamentary
Affairs, The Constitution of the People's Republic of Bangladesh
(Dhaka, 1979).
3. Constitution of the People's Republic of Bangladesh, as revised by
Proclamation Order 1 of 1977, p. 8.
4. One of the electoral strategies of the Awami League in the June
1996 parliamentary polls was to appease the military by pledging to
build up a strong and well-trained national army. It also welcomed for
the first time a good number of retired military officers, who were
encouraged to compete in the election on the Awami League ticket.
Apparently to "keep the army in good humor," the new annual budget
for 1996-97 presented by the Awami League government pro-

 Page 719
vided for a 7 percent increase in defense expenditure. For a party
that has returned to power after two decades in the political
wildernessfollowing the military coup that ousted it from power
because of grievances that included low defense spendingthis
budget increase indicates its continued vulnerability vis-à-vis the
military.
5. For a detailed discussion on the subject see Ahamed 1985.
6. For further details see Hossain 1995.
7. Asiaweek, May 19, 1995.
8. This was one of the findings of the task force constituted in 1991
by the Interim Government that replaced autocratic rule in
Bangladesh. The task force was composed of several hundred
Bangladeshi experts who quickly produced a substantive report in
four volumes dealing with various dimensions of the developmental
challenges facing the country. See Task Forces 1991.
9. Task Forces 1991, 26-27.
10. For the same year, the proportions of urban and rural populations
living below the poverty line were, respectively, 38 and 49 percent in
India, 20 and 31 percent in Pakistan, 19 and 43 percent in Nepal, and
15 and 36 percent in Sri Lanka (United Nations Development
Program [UNDP] 1995: 178-79).
11. UNDP 1995: 168-69.
12. UNDP 1995: 156-57.
13. When, immediately after the partition, Pakistan wanted to impose
Urdu as the national language, the people of East Pakistan viewed the
measure as an instrument of cultural suppression and protested. That
reaction led to the historical language movement of 1952, which is
widely viewed as the root of the urge for independent nationhood.
14. Recently the federal interior minister of Pakistan announced that
his country would expel these people. He went on to announce that
Pakistan would not accept stranded Pakistanis in Bangladesh, who
have been awaiting repatriation since 1971. See Bangladesh News
Fortnightly, Nov. 1-15, 1995.
15. Ministry of Information and Publications, Government of India,
India 90 (New Delhi, 1990), quoted in Swain 1993: 8.
16. This part draws heavily from Iftekharuzzaman 1994.
17. Bangladesh Observer, Jan. 26, 1996.
18. Bangladesh Observer, May 26, 1992.
19. The chairperson of the Awami League, Sheikh Hasina Wajed,
blasted the government of Khaleda Zia for its failure to reach
agreement with India over the country's legitimate share in the waters
of the Ganges despite making much ado about the issue before
coming to power. See the Daily Star, Jan. 8, 1994, and Ittefaq (in
Bangla), July 30, 1994. On the other hand, its opponents continue to
blame the Awami League for consenting to the commissioning of the
barrage in the first place. Khaleda Zia, the present prime minister, led
the "Farakka March" on several occasions as an instrument to
mobilize public opinion in favor of her party on the platform of anti-
Indianism. She has described Farakka as an Indian conspiracy that the
people of Bangladesh will not accept.
20. During the 1991 elections Khaleda Zia and her Bangladesh
Nationalist Party (BNP) leaders were reported to have pledged to
bring more Ganges water if elected to power. See Ajker Kagoj
(Dhaka), June 6 and 8, 1992. See also Baxter and Rahman 1991: 686-
91. Prior to the national election of June 12, 1996, the


 Page 720
BNP portrayed the Farakka problem as part of India's well-planned
"expansionist design." See Financial Express (Dhaka), May 17,
1996.
21. For details on the two proposals and each other's arguments see
Abbas 1984: 124-29; Swain 1993; and Keesings Contemporary
Archives, Sept. 18, 1981, pp. 31090-91.
22. For more on issues in Bangladesh-India relations see Hassan
1989; Iftekharuzzaman 1989; Huq 1993; Ghosh 1989.
23. According to one source, India has constructed barrages at the
headwaters of 21 out of 54 common rivers. For details see Financial
Express (Dhaka), May 17, 1996.
24. For a detailed analysis of the treaty see Hassan 1987: 101-38.
25. China waited until the fall of the Mujib government; the Muslim
countries recognized Bangladesh following Mujib's participation in
the summit meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference
held in Lahore.
26. For details see Siddiqui 1987: 426-30. Hassan (1987: 93-94),
provides a detailed analysis of the issue based on interviews with
senior officials of the Indian army involved in the 1971 operation. See
also Ghosh 1989: 66.
27. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, quoted in Hassan 1987: 74.
28. For reasons why Bangladesh was frustrated at that early stage of
cordial relations see Kuldip Nayar, "An Opportunity in Bangladesh,"
Island (Colombo), July 29, 1996.
29. Keesings Contemporary Archives, Sept. 1981, p. 27381.
30. Whether the 1977 agreement was the result of Bangladesh's move
at the United Nations or the change of regime in India earlier that year
remains to be examined. As a result of Bangladesh's move at the
Special Political Committee of the U.N. General Assembly, a
consensus was worked out by a group of nonaligned countries who
urged Bangladesh and India to "meet urgently in Dhaka at the
ministerial level for negotiation with a view to arriving at a fair and
expeditious settlement." Before these talks could produce any result,
the Congress government of Indira Gandhi was replaced by the Janata
government headed by Morarji Desai. It was during the tenure of the
latter, considered to be the warmest interlude in post-1975 relations
between Bangladesh and India, that the agreement was signed.
31. India's share under the new agreement rose from 11,000-16,000
cubic feet per second to 20,500-26,500 cubic feet per second. It was,
however, agreed that in the case of exceptionally low flows in the dry
season, Bangladesh would be guaranteed a minimum of 80 percent of
the volume earmarked for it in the schedule of allocation.
32. For details on the provisions of the agreement see, RCSS
Newsletter (Colombo) 3, no. 1, Apr. 1997.
33. According to the SAARC charter, no "bilateral and contentious"
issue may be raised as an official agendum. But the high-level
meetings of the association provide opportunities for the political
leaders to discuss matters of dispute informally.
34. Despite its limitations, the association has emerged as a forum
where member states hold informal consultations on problems of
regional security and stability. On the sidelines of the discussion of
official agenda items, matters of bilateral and regional concern can be
discussed practically without restriction.

 Page 721
Sharing of water resources between Bangladesh and India, the
Indo-Pakistan controversy over the nuclear question, and the ethnic
conflict in Sri Lanka are among such issues that have been
discussed on several occasions in SAARC. For details see
Iftekharuzzaman 1996.
Chapter 10: Pakistan
1. See Lodhi, 1994b: 301-2; see also Hanif 1989a: 15-16.
2. The Aid-to-Pakistan Consortium commits around $2 billion in
credits to Pakistan; short and medium-term loans are provided by the
IMF.
3. Official estimates put the current inflation rate at 13 percent, but
independent economists put it at 22-25 percent. See Rashid 1996; see
also Adil 1993: 61.
4. According to President Leghari, ''cooperation with China in the
defense and strategic fields has acquired even greater significance in
the context of the virtual rupture of our defense relationship with the
U.S."; see News, July 4, 1996.
5. According to annual police reports, 80 percent of crime in
Baluchistan province, bordering on Afghanistan, is committed by
Afghan nationals. See Zulfikar 1994a: 62; see also Yusufzai 1989: 25-
26 and Hussain 1993: 4-5.
6. The ten-year-old Karachi conflict has resulted in more than 15,000
deaths. See Sultan Ahmed, "Karachi Killings: No Move for a
Breakthrough," Muslim, Jan. 29, 1996; see also Dawn, Jan. 1 and Jan.
21, 1996.
7. In October 1994, the national census, postponed since 1991
because of ethnic tensions in Sindh, was indefinitely postponed by the
central government in response to a united demand by Baluchistan's
ruling and governing parties that the census be held following the
repatriation of all Afghan refugees.
8. Pakistan's formation had been demanded by the Muslim League on
the ground that the Indian Muslims were a separate nation, politically,
socially, and culturally, from the Hindu majority.
9. In Baluchistan, for example, the center's refusal to respect
aspirations for autonomy resulted in a prolonged armed conflict
between dissident Baluch and the security forces of the state. See
Harrison 1981: 34-40.
10. See Rubin 1995; see also Hussain 1992a: 21-22.
11. President Zia-ul-Haq's speech on May 22, 1988, cited in Hussain
and Hussain 1993: 93.
12. Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg's address to the Pakistan Ordinance
Factory seminar, Sept. 19, 1987. See Defence Journal 14, no. 11
(1986): 6.
13. Keynote address of Admiral Saeed M. Khan at a three-day
international conference (Apr. 18-20) under the joint auspices of the
Pakistan Navy and the Institute of Strategic Studies. See Defence
Journal 20, nos. 5-6 (1994): 5.
14. Sardar Assef Ali's interview. See Newsline, Aug. 1994, p. 32.
15. See Brig. S. K. Malik 1991: 13.
16. President Ghulam Ishaq Khan's address to the National Defense
College's Thirteenth Annual Convocation, May 1989. See Dawn, June
1, 1989.
17. These measures include ordinances, acts of parliament, and
constitutional amendments that have increased the power of the
executive and its law enforcement agencies. See Ahmed 1991: 46-47.
18. Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's interview in Newsline, Nov.-Dec.
1993, pp. 46a-50.

 Page 722
19. News, Mar. 7, 1997.
20. President Leghari stresses, for example, that although the Kashmir
dispute has "retarded peace and development in the region for almost
half a decade, so long as the dispute remains unresolved, "we simply
cannot lower our guard and our armed forces must remain alert and
fully prepared to meet any challenges to our national security." See
Dawn, Jan. 2, 1996.
21. Dawn, Nov. 18, 1986.
22. See Hussain 1995a: 38.
23. Rashid 1988; see also Richter 1989: 451.
24. Admiral Saeed M. Khan's keynote address, 1994. Defence Journal
20, nos. 5-6: 5.
25. See Maj. Gen. Rahat Latif 1993: 329.
26. According to one analyst, "Since outlays in defense have
consistently been higher than the capacity of the economy to pay, the
government has been forced to accumulate debts" (Naqvi 1996: 38).
According to the state minister for finance at the time, Makdoom
Shahabuddin, it was now official policy to use a percentage of the
proceeds from privatization for debt retirement. See Muslim, July 19,
1996.
27. News, June 14 and 15, 1996.
28. Military spokesman quoted in Hussain 1992b: 24.
29. According to a Sindhi ethnonationalist leader: "We've had martial
law for more than half the country's history. The imposition of martial
law is based on violence [but even] short periods of civil rule have
also been predominantly violent. We have seen the deployment of
armed forces in Baluchistan, the killing of people, and the frequent
use of detention laws to keep people in jail....Today Sindh is a totally
occupied territory." See Mumtaz All Bhutto's interview in Newsline,
Oct. 1991, pp. 26-27.
30. These concerns are articulated in the annual reports of the HRCP
and periodic resolutions passed by WAF chapters in Karachi, Lahore,
and Islamabad.
31. Pakistan was the seventh-largest borrower of World Bank loans in
fiscal year 1995: its commitments totaled $705 million.
32. More than 39 million people live below the poverty line in
Pakistan today; 77.5 million (55 percent of the population) lack access
to safe water; 52 percent of the children under five are malnourished
and 16 percent die. Meanwhile 279 rupees are spent on the military
for every rupee spent on health and education. See Lodhi 1992: 29.
33. The nuclear issue has consistently come to the fore in Pakistan's
attempts to improve its political and economic relations with Japan.
During former prime minister Bhutto's visit to Japan in January 1996,
for example, the Japanese prime minister and foreign minister placed
special emphasis on Pakistan's signing the NPT and the CTBT. See
Muslim, Jan. 18, 1996, and News, Jan. 19, 1996.
34. According to a senior Pakistani diplomat, for example, "India's
greater size, population, strategic depth etc. are given factors which
cannot be altered; but their effect is aggravated by the constant rise in
India's military strength....As relations between the two countries are
never free of tensions, due to the unresolved Kashmir dispute and a
persistent Indian hostility to partition, Pakistan is obliged at all times
to look to its defenses" (Akhund 1988: 14).

 Page 723
35. See Commodore Salimi (1988: 21). See also Lt. Col. Saleem
(1993: 25).
36. See Lt. Col. Qazi 1964: 19 and Col. Ahmad 1965: 59.
37. See Vice Admiral Quadir 1988: 18 and Lt. Gen. Matinuddin 1993-
94: 31-32.
38. Lt. Col. Syed Ali Hamid 1990-91: 28 and Commodore Salimi
1988: 21.
39. General Zia-ul-Haq; cited in Hussain 1988: 1.
40. According to former Foreign Minister Sardar Assef Ali, Pakistan
is "now amongst the eight world players who are being consulted and
given weight as far as nuclear nonproliferation is concerned." See
Dawn, Apr. 4, 1996.
41. Former Prime Minister Moeen Qureshi's statement at a press
conference in July 1993; cited in Lodhi 1994a: 227-28. Zia, for his
part, declared that "Pakistan will never make a weapon and if it does,
it will not explode it" (Ali 1984: 62).
42. Prime Minister Moeen Qureshi, cited in Lodhi 1994a: 227-28. See
also Defence Journal 20, nos. 3-4 (1994): 60. Addressing a seminar in
April 1994, Defense Minister Aftab Shaban Mirani clearly linked the
two issues by stating that Pakistan wanted an equitable and
nondiscriminatory nonproliferation regime in South Asiaadding that
the "core issue" of Jammu and Kashmir "has bedeviled relations
between Pakistan and India for almost half a century." See Defence
Journal 20, nos. 3-4 (1994): 58.
43. Statement by Foreign Minister Sardar Assef Ali; see News, July 5,
1996.
44. President Leghari's address to the National Defense College; see
News, July 4, 1996.
45. U.S. military and economic assistance played a major part in
enabling Zia's military regime to retain power for eleven years.
46. U.S. economic assistance to Pakistan had been terminated in April
1979 on the ground that Pakistan had acquired a nuclear capability,
but aid was renewed following the Soviet military intervention in
Afghanistan.
47. According to Prime Minister Bhutto, Pakistan supports "regional
nonproliferation on a regional basis." See Prime Minister Bhutto's
address to a press conference in Karachi reported in Defence Journal
20, nos. 3-4 (1994): 57.
48. Frontier Post, June 8, 1989.
49. Defence Journal 20, nos. 3-4 (1994): 60.
50. The United States has been assured repeatedly by Pakistan that its
nuclear program has been capped since July 1990 but that a rollback
is impossible so long as an Indian security threat remains. See, for
example, Pakistan Foreign Secretary Shahryar Khan's statement
during a visit to the United States in February 1992, cited in
McDonald 1992, and see Prime Minister Bhutto's press conference,
Nov. 20, 1993, cited in Defence Journal 20, nos. 3-4 (1994): 57.
51. The United States is already India's largest trading partner, and
there is large-scale U.S. private investment in India.
52. The M-11 ballistic missiles have a range of 300-600 kilometers.
53. Economist, Feb. 12, 1994.
54. According to General Chishti, a key member of Zia's initial
martial law administration, during the cabinet discussion on the PDPA
takeover in April 1978 he recommended that "we should install a
favorable government in Kabul, using friendly Pushtun tribes"
(Chishti 1989: 205). This appears to have been the strategy adopted
by the Zia regime. According to Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto:

 Page 724
"There were crazy plans that since we lost Dacca, we'll take over
Kabul and impose a regime of our own kind." See the prime
minister's interview in Newsline, July 1989, p. 22.
55. The anti-Taliban alliance consists of the exiled government of
President Rabbani; Commander Ahmed Shah Masood's Shura-i-
Nazra, the Shiite Hizb-e-Wahdat of Karim Khalili, and General
Rashid Dostum's Junbush-e-Milli.
56. Baluchistan's irrigation minister, Abdul Hameed Achakzai,
declared in parliament that it was "impossible for untrained talibs who
are not familiar with tanks, anti-aircraft guns and cannons to defeat
well-trained and well-equipped Afghan commanders. It was Frontier
Corps men who fought and helped pro-Pakistan forces entrench
themselves." Cited in Zulfikar 1994b: 54. For the role of the Inter-
Services Intelligence (ISI) in Afghan affairs see Askari 1989.
57. According to Army Chief of Staff General Beg, thousands of
Kashmiris, trained by Pakistan's ISI, had fought in Afghanistan and
subsequently returned to Kashmir, along with other ISI-funded
guerrillas. See Harrison 1992: 97.
58. Country Report Pakistan Afghanistan, fourth quarter 1994, p. 14.
59. Politically contentious issues have been deliberately excluded
from SAARC's ambit. See Charter of the South Asian Association for
Regional Cooperation, Dhaka, Dec. 8, 1985.
60. For the most intensive study of Brasstacks see Bajpai et al. 1995.
61. Cited in Lodhi and Hussain 1990a: 20-21.
62. HRCP's annual report for 1995, for example, strongly condemns
state torture, inhuman treatment, and deaths in custody. See Human
Rights Commission of Pakistan, State of Human Rights in 1995
(Lahore, n.d.).
63. Organizations such as the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee have
been set up specifically to empower citizens confronted by violence
and crime (Khan 1991). See also Abdus Sattar Edhi's interview in
Newsline, Mar. 1995, p. 22.
64. Zaidi and Khan 1994: 44; see also Rahman 1994: 37-38, 43.
65. These measures include the second amendment to the constitution
declaring the Ahmediyas a non-Muslim minority; Zia's system of
separate communal electorates; the eighth amendment to the
constitution providing constitutional protection to Islamic legislation;
the establishment of Shariat courts; and promulgation of the
blasphemy law.
66. See Hussain 1995b: 35-36; see also Hanif 1994: 26-28.
67. By recent estimates, 60 to 65 percent of Pakistani army officers
are of Punjabi origin, rising to over 70 percent in the high command,
whereas the Pakhtun component of the officer corps is between 30
and 33 percent. There are less than 2 or 3 percent Baluch personnel in
the army; Sindhis represent less than 1 percent of the army's total
strength although they constitute almost 25 percent of the total
population. See Kennedy 1991: 946; see also Ahmed 1985: 241 and
Zaidi 1989: 308.
68. It is claimed, for example, by senior military officials that because
"political instability" is "endemic" in Pakistan, "we must suppress our
extreme individual parochial concerns in favor of mutually agreed
national projects and goals which can lift us morally, economically,
militarily and socially''goals that would, of course, be determined by
the military, the most nationalistic of Pakistani institutions. See Maj.
Gen. Latif 1993: 332-33.
69. Hussain 1992b: 23-24; see also Hanif 1992: 30-32.


 Page 725
70. Justifying MQM casualties in "police encounters," interior
minister Major General (retired) Nasrullah Babar stated: "After all
they had murdered more than 200 jawans [rank-and-file] of the police
and Rangers. And they killed many poor people from upcountry [the
NWFP and the Punjab], who were trying to make a living in Karachi."
See News, Jan. 28, 1996.
71. Cited in Hussain 1995a: 38.
72. Sardar Assef Ali's interview in Newsline, Aug. 1994, p. 32.
73. A Foreign Office spokesman stated: "India has employed its
intelligence agencies to destabilize Pakistan, particularly in the
province of Sindh"; see Dawn, Jan. 5, 1996. Former Sindh chief
minister Abdullah Shah claimed that the Afghan president,
Burhanuddin Rabbani, had extended political and military support to
the MQM's terrorist wing: "It's the three K issue-Karachi, Kabul and
Kashmir." See Dawn, Jan. 22, 1996, and Muslim, Jan. 22, 1996.
74. Dawn, Apr. 11, 1997.
75. An alleged Indian rocket attack across the Line of Actual Control
on January 26, 1996, which resulted in eighteen deaths and was
followed by an exchange of heavy fire between Indian and Pakistani
troops, demonstrated the dangers that exist due to the heightened state
of Indo-Pakistan tensions over Kashmir. See News, Jan. 27, 1996, and
Muslim, Jan. 28, 1996.
76. In 1992 and early 1993, Pakistan itself narrowly avoided being
declared a terrorist state by the United States for its support of
Kashmiri militants. See Far Eastern Economic Review, June 18,
1992; see also Ali 1993.
77. During the Gulf War, even while pro-Saddam sentiments were
expressed by the former army chief, General Beg, it was under his
command that the Pakistan army sent a contingent of troops to Saudi
Arabia; see Hussain 1991: vii. Moreover, a number of Pakistani drug
traffickers have been extradited to the United States, as has a World
Trade Center bombing suspect, Ramzi Yousaf. Citing Ramzi Yousaf's
arrest as a demonstration of Pakistan's resolve to act as "a frontline
state against international terrorism," Prime Minister Bhutto called on
the United States to help Pakistan in its fight against "radical Islamists
and terrorist gangs" posing serious threats to Pakistan's security. A
decision has also been taken by Pakistani authorities to extradite Arab
extremists involved in the Afghan war to their home countries to
address U.S. concerns that they were conducting terrorist activities
from Pakistani soil. See Lodhi 1994a: 68-69; see also Country Report
Pakistan Afghanistan, second quarter 1995, pp. 21-22.
78. Country Report Pakistan Afghanistan, fourth quarter 1995, pp. 16-
17; see also News, Jan. 28, 1996.
79. Country Report Pakistan Afghanistan, fourth quarter 1995, p. 17.
80. News, Jan. 21, 1996.
81. Ilyas Khan, "Endless Battle," Newsline, Nov. 1996, p. 61.
82. These talks include Prime Minister Bhutto's visit to Teheran in
November 1995, where she declared that "those who spread baseless
rumors about differences between Iran and Pakistan [in the context of
Afghanistan] seek to create division. Both the countries cannot dream
of such a rivalry between the two brotherly nations"; see Muslim,
Nov. 8, 1995. In January 1996, Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar
Velayati visited Islamabad and held discussions with the Pakistani
prime minister and foreign minister on Afghanistan; see Muslim, Jan.
10, 1996.


 Page 726
83. News, Nov. 17, 1995.
84. As Pakistan's gas resources dry up, plans are under way to
construct oil and gas pipelines from Turkmenistan via Afghanistan's
western provinces. See News, Jan. 17, 1996.
85. Dawn, May 26, 1997.
86. In his speech at the Economic Cooperation Organization's summit
in Ashkabad, Karimov accused Pakistan of prolonging the Afghan
civil war by aiding the Taliban militia, while General Dostum, who
took refuge in Turkey after the Taliban entry into Mazar-i-Sharif,
alleged that Pakistan had bribed defecting General Abdul Malik
(Dawn, May 16, 1997; News, May 26, 1997).
87. The Russian foreign minister, Primakov, also warned the Taliban
that the collective security pact of the CIS would be invoked should
the security of the Central Asian Republics be threatened by the
Taliban.
88. Dawn, May 30, 1997.
89. Dawn, May 30, 1997.
90. Despite the 1971 experience (or perhaps because of it), within the
Pakistan military there is still a deep belief that "it is the Army which
is keeping this country intact. The day the fibre of this Army breaks,
India will overrun Pakistan" (Chishti 1989: 56).
Chapter 11: Sri Lanka
1. Most works on security in Sri Lanka focus exclusively on the
foreign policy and strategic role of Sri Lanka in South Asia. See, for
instance, Kodikara 1990 and Muni 1993.
2. This survey on perceptions of security is based on a sample of 100
people and was carried out in December 1995. It was not done
according to strict sociological methods of surveying, because its
purpose was mainly to get a qualitative assessment of perceptions of
security.
3. Daily News, Mar. 6-7, 1971.
4. See, for instance, Wilson 1979, Gunaratna 1990, and
Chandraprema 1991.
5. Ceylon Daily News, Jan. 9, 1956.
6. Ceylon Daily News, May 26, 1958; Silumina, May 25, 1958.
7. Hindu, Mar. 11, 1994.
8. Island, Apr. 23, 1995.
9. See, for instance, the Report of the Working Group on Enforced or
Involuntary Disappearances (Oct. 7-18, 1991), Commission on
Human Rights, 48th session, Jan. 8, 1992.
10. UNP Manifesto, Island, Aug. 8, 1994; ICES Election Literature
Collection.
11. From a survey on conceptions of security: interviews of a sample
of 35 Sinhalese males and 35 Sinhalese females.
12. From a survey on perceptions of security: interviews of 10 Tamil
males and 9 Tamil females, December 1995.
13. Election Manifesto of the People's Alliance, 1994; ICES Election
Literature Collection.
14. Christian Bay has argued in an absorbing article that security is
the poor person's freedom. He goes on to say: "For people who are
heavily oppressed,


 Page 727
whether by political design or economic circumstances, or both,
their measure of individual security determines the size of their
limited space for freedom of choice" (Bay 1987: 129).
15. Daily News, Mar. 27, 1997.
16. This section draws on Bastian 1988.
17. Jayadeva Uyangoda, a university lecturer, and Victor Ivan, the
editor of the Sinhala tabloid Ravaya, were among her closest advisers.
Both were leaders in the 1971 JVP rebellion.
18. Tamil Times, Jan. 15, 1995.
19. Election Manifesto of the People's Alliance, 1994, p. 12.
20. Election Manifesto of the People's Alliance, 1994, p. 12.
21. Sunday Times, June 2, 1996.
22. Island, Mar. 6, 1996.
Chapter 12: Myanmar
1. The ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC)
stipulated in June 1989 that the name of Burma be changed to
Myanmar Naing Ngan or Union of Myanmar. The new nomenclature
also requires the use of Bamar instead of Burman, and the citizens
and language of the country are now officially Myanmar (Burmese
previously). These changes are not accepted by opponents of the
regime, who still use the old names. Thus, the usage has political
connotations. The use of the new terms in this chapter, however,
simply reflects the fact that the change has been officially stipulated
and is used by a substantial segment of the international community.
2. On November 15, 1997, the name of the military junta was changed
from SLORC to the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC).
The name change appears to be the consequence of a power shift
within the military regime and is also intended to convey to the
international community that the military regime has consolidated
itself and its focus is now on development as opposed to restoring law
and order. The significance of this name change for Myanmar's
conception of security and the nature of domestic politics remains
unclear, although drastic change appears rather unlikely.
3. Those who challenged the government's hegemony were
considered a security risk to the state.
4. Here Bamar refers to the majority race (Burman in most Western
literature), whereas Myanmar is used interchangeably for the state
(Burma) and for its citizens (Burmese).
5. Pyus belonged to an ancient civilization that flourished in central
and lower Myanmar for several centuries before the advent of Bamar
nationhood in the form of the Bagan dynasty, founded in A.D. 956
(Thwin 1985: 17-21).
6. The term paukphaw represents the spirit of affection and goodwill
between the people of China and Myanmar that ostensibly has existed
since time immemorial. An example of mutual accommodation was
the January 1960 settlement of the territorial boundary between China
and Myanmar. In the Sino-Burmese Boundary Agreement, Myanmar
ceded two frontier tracts of approximately 100 square kilometers each
to China in exchange for a 130-square kilometer "assigned tract"
inside Myanmar (see Nu 1960).

 Page 728
7. According to the 1983 census, the proportions of minority ethnic
groups were: Shan, 8.5 percent; Kayin, 6.2 percent; Rakhine, 4.5
percent; Mon, 2.4 percent; Chin, 2.2 percent; Kachin, 1.4 percent; and
Kayah, 0.4 percent (Government of Burma 1986: 21, table A-6). The
census classification identified eight broad ethnic categories
constituting 135 national groups: Kachin (12); Kayah (9); Kayin (11);
Chin (53); Bamar (9); Mon; Rakhine (7); and Shan (33)see the
Myanmar-language daily Loketha Pyithu Neizin, Sept. 26, 1990.
8. Real per capita national income surpassed the 1985-86 value in
1995-96, and the economy grew by 33 percent in the period from
1992-93 to 1995-96 (Myanview 2, no. 3 [1996]: 1).
9. See, for example, "Declaration No. 1/90" dated July 27, 1990,
clarifying SLORC's view on the transfer of power and the
democratization process (Weller 1993:194-96).
10. All were based at Manerplaw on the Thai-Myanmar border, the
headquarters of Kayin insurgent group under Bo Mya. The DAB was
formed in November 1988; the 8-member NCGUB in December
1990; and the 47-member NCUB in August 1992.
11. For accounts sympathetic to "activists, targets and victims," see
Amnesty International 1994 and Lombard 1992.
12. Address delivered on March 24, 1995, by Patron of the Union
Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) Senior General
Than Shwe on the occasion of the opening of the management course
for USDA executives (NLM, Mar. 25, 1995).
13. Examples of SLORC-imposed limits are Myanmar's refusal to
allow the continuation of the construction of the "Friendship" bridge
spanning the border at Myawaddy in one of the busiest border trading
towns (Bangkok Post, June 14, 1995); the travel restrictions placed on
foreign nationals residing in Myanmar; and the requirement that civil
servants obtain permission from their respective ministries before
meeting foreigners.
14. The tribal minorities such as the Kayins, Kachins, Chins, and
Kayahs, as well the more developed Shans, were never incorporated
into the Bamar kingdom. The monarchs of central Myanmar opted for
suzerainty rather than direct rule. Thus, the British probably found
such an arrangement extremely convenient in terms of conserving
administrative and military resources; they continued the practice with
some modifications (see Taylor 1982: 13-14).
15. Compare Taylor's argument that "the idea of ethnic conflict as
conceived in Western ascriptive terms" influenced both the Bamar
nationalist elites and ethnic leaders and that the imposition of a
modern nation-state system created an alien context for ethnic
relations (Taylor 1982: 10).
16. For an account sympathetic to the "democratic forces," see Lintner
1990a. The official explanation may be found in Government of
Myanmar 1989a and 1989b.
17. See, for example, the statement "Tatmadaw adopts strategy of
saving the Union through tactic of preventing itself from
disintegration," which was given as the rationale for the military
intervention in 1988. Citation from the 33d press conference
conducted by the Information Committee of SLORC on March 31,
1989 (WPD, Apr. 1, 1989); and SLORC secretary-1 major general
Khin Nyunt's clarification at the 100th press conference on July 13,
1990, and his statements at

 Page 729
the 104th press conference on September 11, 1990 (Government of
Myanmar 1990: 100, 248-50).
18. According to the SLORC chairman, General Saw Maung, the
upheaval was "just like having an armed insurrection" in the country's
heartland (interview with Asiaweek correspondents, Asiaweek, Feb. 3,
1989). For the ruling junta's view, see Government of Myanmar
(1990: 222) and Tatmadaw Thar (1990: 12634, 147-203, 237-55).
19. Speech delivered by SLORC chairman and the armed forces
commander-in-chief Senior General Than Shwe at the military parade
commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of Armed Forces Day (New
Light of Myanmar [daily; hereafter NLM], Mar. 28, 1995).
20. Myanmar has entered into cooperative agreements with all the
bordering states, and on June 11, 1991, it deposited the instrument of
accession to the 1988 U.N. Convention against Illicit Traffic in
Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances. A new and tougher
antidrug law to replace those enacted since 1974 was promulgated in
January 1993 in accordance with the convention. See, for example,
"Perspectives," NLM, June 27, 1994, as well as the Feb. 10, 1994, and
Mar. 4, 1995, issues of NLM. For the opposite view, see Lintner
1995c.
21. See, for example, the home minister's speech to the personnel of
the Immigration and Manpower Department, in which he reminded
them of the motto "The earth will not swallow up a people, but
another [aliens] will"see NLM, Feb. 8, 1994, and Maung 1994. The
establishment of the new Ministry of Immigration and Population was
announced on June 15, 1995. The portfolio was given to SLORC
member Lt. Gen. Maung Hla, the military appointments general,
commander of Special Operations Bureau No. 2, and ninth in the
military hierarchy (NLM, June 16, 1995).
22. Khun Sa claimed to be fighting for an independent Shan state, but
most observers saw it as a ploy to counter his drug warlord image
(Lintner 1995b). The latter was borne out by his swift capitulation in
January 1996.
23. Down from about 60,000 in early 1989. Estimated on the basis of
data supplied in Burma Alert 5, no. 12 (1994), p. 3.
24. There had been considerable tension at the border before the
exodus as the Myanmar side reportedly beefed up its troop
deployments apparently to counter rebel activities. Both sides played
down the incidents of shooting and confrontation that occurred, and
the tension was quickly diffused (see Asiaweek, Feb. 21, 1992, pp. 22-
25). The exodus involved some 250,000 Muslims of Bangladeshi
origin who fled the Rakhine state, claiming to have been victims of
religious and racial persecution. They were regarded as illegal
economic migrants by SLORC. In April 1992 the two governments
signed an agreement to repatriate them under the auspices of the U.N.
High Commissioner for Refugees. The repatriation process is almost
complete; more than 229,000 had been returned by April 1997 (AFP
news [Internet], Apr. 30, 1997).
25. See, for example, statement attributed to Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt
with reference to Thai allegations of cross-border intrusion by
Myanmar forces: "The problem had not grown big due to the existing
good relations and mutual understanding between the two armed
forces." (Nation, May 29, 1995).
26. See, for example, the editorial "From Appeasement to
Encouragement," Nation, May 8, 1995.

 Page 730
27. However, the visit of U.S. congressman Stephen Solarz on
September 4, 1988, along with the presence of a U.S. Navy battle
group on the morning of September 12 in the Andaman Sea, some
190 nautical miles south of Yangon, seem to have been regarded by
the Myanmar military as a direct intervention (Tatmadaw Thar 1990:
198-99, 239-41).
28. Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 1991
and had received at least 30 international honors and awards as of
mid-1995. She has been idolized by the Western media, NGOs, and
anti-SLORC groups.
29. This statement by the military also may be interpreted as an
attempt to denigrate the opposition groups by portraying them as
"foreign stooges" and "axe-handles for neo-colonialists." The link
between domestic and external threats then becomes a heuristic
device to serve the regime's purpose.
30. There are altogether six objectives serving as the principal
guidelines for the national convention. The other five are
nondisintegration of the state, nondisintegration of national solidarity,
perpetuation of sovereignty, the flourishing of a "genuine multiparty
democracy," and the "further burgeoning" of "justice, liberty and
equality."
31. Announced at the press conference convened by the SLORC
Information Committee on July 21, 1989. Suu Kyi was released on
July 10, 1995.
32. All the materials refuting allegations by the regime's opponents
and critics as well as promoting SLORC's views and actions are
directed mainly at the country's citizens. In particular, they are meant
to neutralize the impact of foreign radio broadcasts in the Myanmar
language by the Voice of America (U.S.), the British Broadcasting
Corporation (U.K.), and All India Radio (India), which are believed to
be widely received by the public at large.
33. For state perspectives on these issues, see "Perspectives" NLM,
June 29, 1994; Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt's speech at the second meeting of
the Central Committee for Revitalization and Preservation of
Myanmar Cultural Heritage on July 8, 1994 (NLM, July 9, 1994); and
Sein 1995. Despite such attempts there have been resistance and
defiance by some sections of the monkhood. The anti-Muslim rioting
led by monks in Mandalay and other cities that broke out in March
1997 attested to the fact that religious dissent does exist.
34. Excerpts from the speech given by SLORC Secretary-1 Lt. Gen.
Khin Nyunt at the prize distribution ceremony of the 1994
Independence Day Essay and Poetry Competitions and TV Quiz on
January 5, 1994 (NLM, Jan. 6, 1994).
35. However, Western human rights groups and other critics
maintained that there were still hundreds of additional political
prisoners (Bangkok Post, Mar. 10, 1996; United Nations 1996: 2).
36. Since then, the government's tactic has been to tolerate Aung San
Suu Kyi while dealing harshly with her supporters whenever they
transgress existing laws and martial law provisions (Asiaweek, June 7,
1996, pp. 28-30).
37. A vivid example is the reported annulment of the cease-fire
agreement by the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP), which
accused the government of breaking the agreement by sending troops
into the areas designated as the former's exclusive territory and
engaging KNPP troops. This has led to renewed fighting between
government troops and the rebels (statement dated Dec. 20, 1995, and
posted on the Internet via "Burmanet" on Dec. 26, 1995).
38. The five principles are mutual respect for sovereignty and
territorial


 Page 731
integrity, nonaggression, noninterference in each other's internal
affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence.
39. See, for example, Myanmar foreign minister Ohn Gyaw's address
to the 49th session of the U.N. General Assembly (NLM, Oct. 12,
1994).
40. One regional expert stated that the eventual target is 500,000
(Selth 1996: 19).
41. The weapons are mainly Eastern bloc designs of the 1970s.
Possible substantial suppliers are the People's Republic of China,
Pakistan, Poland, and Serbia/Yugoslavia (Selth 1996: 186-89; Jane's
Defence Weekly, Dec. 3, 1994, p. 1).
Chapter 13: Thailand
1. On the Thai elite's involvement in national security issues see
Tongdhamachart et al. 1983: 9-11.
2. This is a view also shared by a faction of the elite itself. See the
remarks made by Boonchu Rojnastein, the deputy prime minister in
1980-81, quoted in Alagappa 1987a: 32.
3. On King Rama V's reforms see Bunnag 1977.
4. When King Rama V was a minor (1868-73), the Bunnag noble
family controlled the revenue flow to the state through major
ministries that they controlled. Particularly during Chuang Bunnag's
regency, royal annual revenue was reported to have declined from 4.8
million to 1.6 million baht. The young king was reported to have said
that his revenue was barely enough to cover his monthly expenses. In
1871, the king ended up borrowing 8 million baht from the powerful
Bunnag and their clan; see Phongpaichit and Baker 1995: 217.
5. For a historical discussion of Thailand's territory see Winichakul
1994.
6. Quoted by Winichakul in Phongpaichit and Baker 1995: 233.
7. Quoted by Barmé in Phongpaichit and Baker 1995: 235.
8. For an account of the 1932 revolution see Mektrairat 1992.
9. Some observers have characterized the domination of the
bureaucracy in Thailand as "bureaucratic polity." See Wilson 1962;
Siffin 1966; and Riggs 1966.
10. Described by Chai-anan Samudavanija; see Samudavanija 1990:
83-84.
11. For an account on the military's measures, see Tamsuk
Numnonda, Nation Building of Field Marshal Phibul Songkhram
during WWII in a series of speeches at Thailand Association of Social
Sciences 2520-2521. Cited in Samudavanija 1990: 84.
12. On the military's thinking about development see Buntrigswat
(n.d.) and Kullavanit (1989).
13. For an account of the army and its activities in domestic affairs
see Bunbongkarn and Sukapanich-Kantaprab 1987: 27-59; and
Bunbongkarn 1987: 49-67.
14. The military's development projects are known as the
"development for security" programs; see Bunbongkarn 1987: 49-76.
15. Strong advocates include Jit Poumisak, who wrote about the
monarchy as the crux of the country's political problems; see
Poumisak 1979.
16. The official death toll for students was reported at 26, but others
believe the real figure is higher; see Phongpaichit and Baker 1995:
311.


 Page 732
17. The policy seeking international support was called the "omni-
direction" policy; see, for example, Chinwanno 1993; Bumrongsuk
1993.
18. For a detailed account see Alagappa 1987a: 39-77.
19. For an account of the conflict see "Top Advisor Questions Army's
Concept," Bangkok Post Weekly Review, June 25, 1989.
20. The same message was used by two different supreme
Commanders recently. See the "Message from the Supreme
Commander" in Defence of Thailand 1994 and in Defence of Thailand
1996.
21. There are different interpretations on the third pillar; see Phiu-nual
1990: 21; Phongpaichit and Baker 1995: 250.
22. On the origin of the conflict with the CPT see Tanham 1974 and
Kerdphol 1986. On the Thai Muslim problems see Pitsuwan 1985 and
Bunnag 1991.
23. For a brief discussion of the May incident see, for example,
Bunbongkarn 1992: 131-33.
24. For a full account, see the report of the Fact Finding Committee
(1992).
25. This is the estimate of the Central Bank of Thailand, cited in
Theeravit 1993: 104.
26. In the 1995 Senate, 37 percent of the 265 members are active-duty
military officers, 27 percent are retired military and bureaucrats, 17
percent are businessmen, 11 percent are active bureaucrats, and the
remaining 8 percent are from various professional groups. See Senate
Members Registry 1993: 166.
27. From a survey on leaders' perceptions on security issues
conducted by the National Defense Research Institute; see The
National Security Strategy of Thailand in the Next Decade (1993).
Perceptions are drawn also from interviews with 33 senior leaders; see
Strategic Thinking (1996).
28. Based on a series of seminar conclusions leading to publication of
Thailand's defense white paper; see The National Security Strategy of
Thailand in the Next Decade (1993); Thailand 1997: Opportunity and
Choices (1994); Thai Armed Forces in the Future (1994).
29. According to one estimate, Thailand lost about 400 troops in the
battle at Ban Romklao, a village on the northeastern border; see
Chinwanno (n.d.).
30. As outlined in The Defence of Thailand (1994: 16).
31. According to the Ministry of Commerce; see Document on
Submarine Procurement Program 1995: 1.
32. Using the Thai Buddhist Era (B.E.) dating system. The equivalent
Christian era dates are in parentheses.
33. For a detailed account, see Mak 1993: chap. 6; Narayanan 1993:
43; Brooke 1995: 99-106.
34. For a brief discussion, see Napasinthuwong 1996: 15-37; the
Newsbrief, Royal United Service Institute 1995: 6.
35. Some observers argued that the RTN's goal of a blue-water navy
is not realistic, while others disagreed; see Mak 1993: chap. 6; Brooke
1995: 5; and Captain Napasinthuwong 1996: 15-37.
36. The RTN's proposal was debated in public for the first time and its
white paper, entitled Document for the Proposed Submarine
Procurement Program (1995), was discussed in newspapers,
interviews, and academic forums and on televised programs. See
Bangkok Post 1995a and 1995b.
37. For a report on official plan, see Nanuam 1995: Al; and "Air
Force

 Page 733
Sees Need for F18 Jets to Meet National Security Needs," Bangkok
Post, Sept. 18, 1995.
Chapter 14: Vietnam
1. The emphasis on organization, therefore, had a rather desperate
note to it, as if organization alone would compensate for the weakness
of the spirit or, indeed, replace the weak spirit itself while containing
the chaos of social and political life. This was the essence of the state.
The Vietnamese Communists' excessive focus on organization in all
matters has been much discussed. The longtime general secretary Le
Duan was one of the primary architects of this line, and although he
believed in the importance of man, the organization factor was key in
providing the structure that would ensure correct behavior and action
(Elliott 1980: 210).
2. For a detailed discussion of the party's cultural policy and its effort
to construct a new national culture during this early period, see Ninh
1996.
3. For a discussion of this period of intellectual questioning,
commonly referred to as the Nhan Van Giai Pham period, see
Boudarel (1991).
4. While party members were earnestly discussing in the pages of the
party's organ, Communist Revieiw, throughout 1988 and 1989 whether
they, as exemplars of society, could engage in private commercial
activities or even hire anyone, because that would be exploitation of
labor, others were emphasizing that for doi moi to work, a
fundamental reorientation of the national security view long
predicated on a hostile environment was in order:
Renovation is prompted by the objective demands of life. First and
foremost it starts from the need to renovate internal thinking (tu duy
doi noi). Foreign relations policy is the continuation of domestic
policy. We cannot renovate internal thinking without renovating
external thinking (tu duy doi ngoai). For example, if we want to
implement well the current movement of "things that must be done
immediately" in the country then it is clear that the outdated thoughts
on external relations like "open the shirt to reveal one's back" and "the
fear of enemies' exploitation" must change. (Phan Doan Nam 1988:
50)
5. This is one such assessment:
After becoming ruling parties, these communist parties had, in their
process of leadership, become subjective and willful, and had
seriously violated objective law, thus affecting the development of the
superiority of socialism, deforming socialism, and causing society to
develop sluggishly and slowly. Even worse, they had become
bureaucratic, alienated themselves from the masses, failed to keep
themselves informed of and meeting the people's aspirations, violated
the principles governing party activities, and breached the democratic
principles within the parties and among the people. A segment of the
party leadership had grown increasingly arbitrary and despotic. There
is also the bitter lesson of the danger faced by a ruling party, against
which Lenin warned long ago. (Phan Hai Nam 1990: 66)
6. There is a growing trend toward establishing Ho Chi Minh as a god
in many villages in the north, particularly those that had seen many
sons dead in the struggle against the French and in the Vietnam War.
Professor Nguyen Duy

 Page 734
Hinh of the Center for the Scientific Study of Religion has noted
this development with a measure of disbelief, calling it the
''buddha-ization of Uncle Ho." See Nguyen Duy Hinh (1993: 351).
7. There is no doubt that the party attached great importance to
fashioning a full body of Ho Chi Minh Thought. In 1992 it was
reported that the state had established a national research project on
Ho Chi Minh Thought, covering some eleven subjects, under the
guidance of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism. The institute was to
"bring together the country's scientists in order to achieve scientific
projects of value, befitting the leadership stature and responding to the
demands within and outside of the country." The list of the kinds of
questions to be explored exemplified the newness of the venture as
well as the expectations of Ho Chi Minh Thought. According to the
director of the Ho Chi Minh Institute, which is under the Institute of
Marxism-Leninism, they are as follows:
What is Ho Chi Minh Thought? How did HCM Thought originate
and develop, and through how many periods? What were the
historical sources that helped form Ho Chi Minh the thinker as an
eastern Marxist? (explain what made Ho Chi Minh different from
other communist ideologists). HCM Thought comprises how many
parts, and what is the structure of each part? Try to establish Ho
Chi Minh's political ideological system: what fundamental
ideologies does it include? HCM Thought does not have mistakes,
but what about drawbacks? What are those inadequacies? How do
we inherit and develop HCM Thought in the new historical
context? (Song Thanh 1992: 9-10)
8. See, for example, the work of the scholar Phan Ngoc (1994) who
explores components of Vietnamese culture that originated from the
various ethnic minority groups, breaking away from the traditional
heavy emphasis on the Chinese character of Vietnamese cultural
borrowing.
9. See, for example, the collection on ASEAN edited by the head of
the Institute of Research on Southeast Asia, Pham Duc Thanh (1996).
10. There were indications that the army also would like its role to be
more specific and delinked from foreign policy. In the army's
grassroots discussions of the party's draft congress documents in the
days leading to the Seventh Party Congress in 1991, the comments
often converged on the lack of clarity that existed about what it means
and what it would take to turn the people's army into a regular modern
army. Another point of convergence was the expressed desire to
separate the discussion of national defense and security from that of
foreign policy because they represented two different approaches
(Thayer 1994a: 59).
11. In the words of the head of the Foreign Ministry's Department of
International Organizations at the Asian Conference on Human Rights
in Bangkok in 1993, "History has taught us that there can be no
unique existing socioeconomic model that can squarely fit into every
nation's unique and diversified reality. Therefore, there [cannot be]
any single formula of human rights that can be imported, or worse,
imposed from the outside" (Vietnam News Agency 1993: 57).
12. A significant number of top diplomats have become members of
the Central Committee in recent years, including four deputy foreign
ministers. It is worth noting that at the Midterm Party Conference in
January 1994, Foreign Minister Nguyen Manh Cam was elevated to
the Politburo (Vietnam News

 Page 735
Agency 1993: 57). Furthermore, the research institutes under the
Foreign Ministry are among the most sophisticated in the country.
Career diplomats are well educated, with wide-ranging experiences
in the former Soviet Union, Latin America, Europe, and the United
States. The Ford Foundation is one prominent international
organization that is banking on the rising stars in the Foreign
Ministry to take important leadership roles in the future. It has
funded the participation of many younger men and women from the
ministry in training and graduate programs in the United States,
particularly at Harvard.
13. During my one-and-a-half-year stay in Vietnam, mainly in Hanoi,
between 1991 and 1993, the rush of certain Vietnamese products to
the northern border to meet Chinese demands was increasingly
interpreted by the city's population as a Chinese plan to undermine
Vietnam's effort to get on its own two feet. The demands changed
rapidly during the time I lived in Hanoi, from copper (leading to the
theft of telephone wires) to dogs, cats, and snakes (causing many
problems for agriculture in some areas, apparently because of the
explosion of the rat population) to specific agricultural products such
as the silk of young corn, apparently for medicinal purposes
(reportedly having devastating effects on the maturity of the corn
crop). Such claims of a state-organized Chinese plan of economic
destruction undoubtedly are exaggerated. Nevertheless, the mix of
real and exaggerated incidents points to a deep-seated fear of China's
intentions in all sectors of Vietnamese society.
14. See, for example, the interview with the chairman of the
Committee for Overseas Vietnamese (Voice of Vietnam 1994: 73-74).
15. In 1993 the head of Hanoi's commercial crime office and the
leader of Hanoi's drug unit were both arrested and charged with
altering and falsifying police documents in a 1992 car-smuggling case
on the border with China. Also in 1993 the director of the Housing
Office of Ho Chi Minh City and four customs officers at the city's
airport were arrested for receiving bribes (Agence France Presse
1993; Voice of Vietnam 1993: 67).
16. The Vietnamese government estimates that out of a population of
some 70 million, 6 million follow Catholicism; 30,000, Protestantism;
10 million, Buddhism; 2.5 million, the Cao Dai religious sect; 1.5
million, the Hoa Hao religious sect; and 50,000, Islam. See Le Minh
(1993: 71).
17. The government seems to have won the upper hand in March
1994 when the Vatican resolved Vietnamese objections to the
appointments of top posts and agreed to future consultations with the
authorities over such appointments. It seems that the Vatican would
rather not have the Vietnamese Catholic Church's growth hindered
any further by the already extensive shortage of top priests. Vietnam,
therefore, finally had a new cardinal in November 1994, Father Pham
Dinh Tung, who had been elevated to the position of archbishop of
the Hanoi Diocese earlier in the year. He is 75 years old, however,
and there is little doubt that conflict between the Vatican and Hanoi
will erupt again when the time comes to decide on his successor, as
well as on other posts and other issues such as the training of more
priests and nuns. See Agence France Presse (1994a: 51).
18. The category of "absolute poor," defined as a person who is
"incapable of satisfying his own minimum needs to sustain life" or
more specifically, having an income of less than 15 kilograms of rice
per month, encompasses 35.61 percent

 Page 736
of the rural population and 8.11 percent of the urban population.
There are two other categories of poverty, however: "destitute,"
with an income of less than 12 kilograms of rice per month,
encompassing 20.5 percent in the countryside and 4.26 percent in
the cities; and "utterly destitute," with an income of less than 8
kilograms of rice per month, encompassing 7.96 percent in the
countryside and 4.42 percent in the cities. See Do Nguyen Phuong
(1994: 89).
19. Between November 22, 1988, and November 12, 1993, in the
space of five years that constitutes the true takeoff of doi moi, a total
of 120 "hot spots" appeared in Thanh Hoa, with 83 cases occurring in
1993. Se Nhi Le (1994: 71).
Hai Hung Province is another area reported to have suffered a high
number of hot spots; 28 hot spots were recorded out of a total of 51
villages in Tu Loc District alone in the early 1990s. See Pham Van
Tho (1994: 52).
20. The study of the hot spots in Thanh Hoa notes that "there have
even been cases in which the militia and self-defense forces have been
mobilized to attack people, which has had serious consequences and
had a bad effect on hamlet and village order and security and internal
security among the people" (Nhi Le 1994: 71).
21. As one study puts it, "There are hot spots that have arisen because
some of the leading and managerial cadres at the primary level are
corrupt and have violated the ownership rights of the people" (Nhi Le
1994: 71). The situation in Hai Hung province was similar, involving
land disputes and
the inadequacies of the state structure: "Many incidents led to land
and market disputes, and there were many conflicts that had been
smoldering for a long time and that had not been resolved
satisfactorily" (Pham Van Tho 1994: 52).
Chapter 15: Indonesia
1. Pancasila, or the Five Principles, was introduced as the ideological
basis of the Indonesian republic shortly before the proclamation of
independence on August 17, 1945. The five principles are Belief in
One God; Humanitarianism; Indonesian Unity; Democracy, and
Social Justice. Pancasila was introduced to block the Muslim parties'
demand for an Islamic state, which was totally opposed by the non-
Muslim minorities. Pancasila was intended to ensure that Indonesian
society would not become secular, something that was abhorrent to
the Muslim parties, and yet guarantee equal rights to all the
recognized religions in the country.
2. The Republic of Indonesia inherits the territories controlled by the
Netherlands East Indies (NEI). The NEI did not succeed in uniting the
archipelago, with its many kingdoms and principalities, in the early
twentieth century. Unity was achieved both peacefully, through
treaties, and militarily, through long, drawn-out wars. Indonesian
nationalism, however, has stressed the importance of the early
empires of Sriwijaya (tenth to thirteenth centuries) and Majapahit
(thirteenth to sixteenth centuries) as the historical antecedents for the
new republic.
3. For a more detailed analysis of the regional rebellions see Leirissa
(1991), who argues that they were not separatist movements but were
really attempts by the regional commanders to develop the regions
and save the nation from the increasing influence of the communists.

 Page 737
4. The "free and active" foreign policy doctrine was first enunciated
by Vice President Mohammad Hatta in 1948. It was initially intended
as a rebuttal to calls from the communist group that Indonesia join the
socialist camp in the worldwide struggle against colonialism. Hatta
argued that to protect its sovereignty Indonesia must not become
directly involved in the Cold War. Instead, Indonesia should chart an
independent course in international politics, always using its own
national interests as the bases for action. See Mohammad Hatta,
"Indonesian Foreign Policy," Foreign Affairs (Apr. 1953).
5. President Suharto's decision to refuse any further economic aid
from the Netherlands probably also reflected his unwillingness to
tolerate criticisms from Indonesia's former colonial master and the
fact that the Dutch share in the overall IGGI assistance to Indonesia
was insignificant.
6. The most prominent targets of socioeconomic jealousies are the
ethnic Chinese, who control about 73 percent of listed firms by
market capitalization, though they only make up 3.5 percent of the
population (East Asia Political Unit 1995).
7. In recent years the government has sounded warnings about the
proliferation of Organisasi Tanpa Bentuk (OTB) or "unformed
organizations," which refers to the infiltration of existing social and
political organizations by followers of the banned PKI, taking
advantage of dissatisfaction with government policy.
8. The D-8 countries are Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Pakistan,
Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Nigeria. The idea was put forward by
Turkey's pro-Islamic prime minister, Necmetin Erbakan, in October
1996 (Observer 1997: 1).
9. Fretilin stands for Frente Revolucionaria de Timor Leste
Independente, or the Revolutionary Front for the Independence of
East Timor, whose key members include Ramos Horta. UDT is short
for Uniao Democratica Timorese, or the Timorese Democratic Union.
One of the UDT's founders, Mario Carrascalao, later became a
governor of East Timor under Indonesian administration. Apodeti
stands for Associacao Popular Democratica Timorense, or Timorese
Popular Democratic Association.
10. The United States Congress has opposed the continuation of
IMET (International Military Education and Training) for Indonesian
military officers and the sale of several F-16 aircrafts to Indonesia
because of alleged Indonesian human rights abuses in East Timor. In
retaliation the Indonesian government announced in early June 1997
that it will pull out of IMET and is no longer interested in buying the
F-16s, which were formerly intended for Pakistan. The Massachusetts
legislature is proposing to ban business links between the state and
Indonesia. The European Union has also issued various declarations
condemning Indonesia's policy in East Timor. The cooperation treaty
between ASEAN and EU, first signed in 1980, has not been renewed
because of Portugal's veto, so that cooperation between the two
regional organizations is still limited to the old agreement. These
examples show how the East Timor issue is beginning to affect
Indonesia's external economic and strategic interests.
11. Suryohadiprojo (1987) argues that although the role of wars in
international relations has greatly diminished and wars largely
replaced by political and economic interactions, wars can still occur,
particularly among the smaller countries. Suryohadiprojo suggests
that Indonesia should pay close attention to the attitudes of countries
in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly those possessing

 Page 738
relatively large military capability. According to Suryohadiprojo
the countries that must be watched are the People's Republic of
China, Japan, Vietnam, India, and Australia.
12. The Wawasan Nusantara concept, introduced to the military at the
1966 and 1967 defense and security seminars initiated by the army,
addressed both the fragmented security outlook and an equally
fragmented command structure. The army had Wawasan Benua
(Continental Outlook), the navy had Wawasan Bahari (Maritime
Outlook), and the air force had Wawasan Dirgant ra (Aerospace
Outlook). Each of the armed force branches had its own minister who
reported directly to President Sukarno. Sukarno had maintained these
fragmented outlooks and command structures to prevent the armed
forces from becoming unified and too powerful, which could threaten
his political control.
Chapter 16: Malaysia
1. Speech by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad at the
First National Security Conference, organized by the Institute of
Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur,
July 15-17, 1986. ISIS Focus 17 (Aug. 1986): 16-18.
2. Federal Constitution, Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur: MDC, 1993), pp.
148-51.
3. Far Eastern Economic Review, Oct. 2, 1986, pp. 46-47.
4. Means 1991: 103.
5. See Far Eastern Economic Review 160, no. 23, (June 5, 1997): 24.
6. Malaysia Official Yearbook 1967 (Kuala Lumpur: Government
Press, 1968), p. 93.
7. Seventh Malaysia Plan 1996-2000 (Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian
National Press, 1996), pp. 3-31.
8. See speech by Dr. Mahathir at a conference on the multimedia
supercorridor in Los Angeles on January 14, 1997. Cited in ISIS
FOCUS 142 (Apr. 1997): 9-17.
9. "Vision 2020: Towards a Developed and Industrialised Society"
(speech delivered by the deputy prime minister, Encik Ghafar Baba, at
the National Seminar on Vision 2020, held in Genting Highlands on
December 5, 1991); published by Socio-Economic Research Unit
(SERU), Prime Minister's Department, Kuala Lumpur, 1991, p. 4.
10. Malaysian Business, July 1-15, 1991, p. 7.
11. See, for instance, Mahathir's speech, "The Second Outline
Perspective Plan, 1991-2000," in Hamid 1993: 436.
12. For details see Asia Yearbook 1995: 168.
13. Speech by Dr. Mahathir Mohamad on Jan. 14, 1982; cited in
Murugesu Pathmanathan and David Lazarus, eds., Winds of Change:
The Mahathir Impact on Malaysia's Foreign Policy (Kuala Lumpur:
Eastview, 1984), pp. 103-4.
14. New Straits Times, Apr. 16, 1997, p. 16.
15. "The South China Sea Dispute: Renewal of a Commitment for
Peace," ASEAN-ISIS Memorandum no. 6, May 1995, p. 5.
16. New Straits Times, Aug. 10, 1988, p. 20.
17. Towards a New Asia, A Report of the Commission for a New Asia
(Kuala Lumpur: ISIS Malaysia, 1994), pp. 13-14.

 Page 739
18. Malaysia's endorsement of the East ASEAN Growth Area
following Dr. Mahathir's visit to Manila in February 1994 bears
testimony to complementary strategic views held by both sides in the
post-Cold War era; New Straits Times, Feb. 5, 1994, p. 10.
19. B. A. Hamzah, director-general of the Malaysian Institute of
Maritime Affairs, has described the Chinese action as part of Beijing's
ultimate objective "to convert the entire South China Sea into a
Chinese lake." See Asia 1995 Yearbook, p. 24.
20. Far Eastern Economic Review, Nov. 7, 1991, p. 35.
21. For instance, Philippine Defense Secretary Renato de Villa
expressed fears that a U.S. military withdrawal from the Philippines
could trigger armed conflict over control of the oil-rich Spratlys in the
South China Sea, claimed by the Philippines, China, Taiwan,
Vietnam, and Malaysia. See the Star, Sept. 4, 1991, p. 18.
22. See, for instance, the report of the Carnegie Endowment Study
Group, which states that Asians fear that the United States "will use
new regional structures to pressure them on human rights and market
access, although they differ among themselves on those issues";
Defining a Pacific Community (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie
Endowment for World Peace, 1994), p. 10.
23. "Malaysian Foreign Policy in the 1990s" (address by Foreign
Affairs Minister Datuk Abu Hassan Omar to the Malaysian
International Affairs Forum on May 3, 1990); Foreign Affairs
Malaysia 23, no. 2 (June 1990): 7.
24. New Straits Times, July 14, 1993, p. 14. See also Deputy Prime
Minister Anwar Ibrahim's statement during his August 1994 visit to
China; New Straits Times, Aug. 27, 1994, p. 1.
25. APEC members agreed to eliminate tariffs on computers and
information technologies by 2000an accord that provided the
foundation for a far-reaching agreement at the meeting of the 123-
member World Trade Organization in Singapore in December 1996;
Sydney Morning Herald, Nov. 27, 1996, p. 14.
26. Seventh Malaysia Plan (Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian National Press,
1996), p. 667.
27. Statement by Malaysian Foreign Minister Datuk Abdullah Ahmad
Badawi; Malaysian Digest 23, no. 5 (May 1996): 8.
28. Established on June 15, 1997, at the end of a four-day summit in
Istanbul, the D-8 group of nations is composed of Bangladesh, Egypt,
Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Turkey; it has the
declared aim of strengthening development cooperation among
members. See New Straits Times, June 13, 1997, p. 2.
29. The 1996 Budget (Kuala Lumpur: Ministry of Information, 1996),
p. 44.
30. New Straits Times, Dec. 6, 1993, pp. 1-2.
31. "Vision 2020: The Way Forward," keynote address by Malaysian
Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad at the Kongres Kebangsaan
Wawasan 2020 (National Congress on Vision 2020), Petaling Jaya,
Malaysia, Apr. 29-30, 1997, p. 9.
32. See the speech by Lim Hng Kiang, acting minister for national
development, in Speeches: A Bimonthly Selection of Ministerial
Speeches (Singapore: Ministry of Information and the Arts, Mar.-Apr.
1994), pp. 102-6.

 Page 740

Chapter 17: The Philippines

1. For a concise discussion of national security in the post-Marcos
Philippines see Timberman 1989. Timberman specifically examined
problems related to Western conceptions of national security as
applied to the Philippines.
2. For a comprehensive background on martial law in the Philippines
during the Marcos period see Brillantes 1987, Hawes 1986,
Rosenberg 1979, and Wurfel 1988.
3. For details related to the Marcos family's plunder of the Philippine
economy see Aquino 1987a and Manapat 1991.
4. For a comprehensive analysis of the communist insurgency in the
Philippines see Jones 1989, Chapman 1987, Sison 1989, Medianski
1986, and Kessler 1989. For works on the Muslim secessionist
movement in the Philippines see Bauzon 1991, Che Man 1990,
George 1980, Gowing 1979, Majul 1985, May 1990, Tan 1977,
Turner, May, and Turner 1992, and Turner 1995.
5. By the time Marcos was overthrown in 1986, the National
Democratic Front was said to have been in control of about 20 percent
of the country's villages, and the NPA guerrilla force was estimated at
7,000 full-time fighters and some 20,000 part-time guerrillas (Rivera
1994a: 253).
6. On the "Lost Command," see especially Catholic Institute for
International Relations (1982), and on the PLO, see Collier (1997).
See also Amnesty International (1982).
7. For a comprehensive discussion of transitional politics in the
Philippines see Aquino 1987b, Bresnan 1986, Timberman 1991, and
Wurfel 1988. For the role of the Catholic Church in the Marcos and
Aquino periods see Youngblood 1990 and Huntington 1991.
8. The phenomenal growth of NGOs in the Philippines is part of the
redemocratization process in the country. They are seen essentially as
institutions of mass mobilization and as alternative venues for
generating and utilizing socioeconomic development funds. They also
have several advantages vis-à-vis the government in that they have
better access to sectors of civil society (or the grass roots) than do
formal government agencies and they function as a conduit of
complementary resources between the state and the public and
between the grass roots and funding agencies, both local and foreign
(Tigno and Velasco 1992: D3). In early 1992, there were a total of
17,000 NGOs registered with the Securities and Exchange
Commission (SEC) of the Philippines (Philippine Daily Inquirer, Feb.
10, 1992, p. 12), whereas the Department of Interior and Local
Government placed the number of NGOs throughout the country at
65,000. Their major concerns are education and training, community
organization and leadership, cooperative credit, research, and health
and nutrition (Tigno and Velasco 1992 and Clarke 1995). Many of
these NGOs had in fact participated in the peace negotiations between
the government and insurgent groups.
9. Mindanao's 33,600 documented displaced families in 1990
represented 82 percent of the national total.
10. See Task Force Detainees of the Philippines 1993. For more on
the vigilante phenomenon see also R. J. May 1992. For a discussion
of problems related to the emergence of anticommunist vigilante
groups in the Philippines see Aquino 1988 and Lawyers Committee
for Human Rights 1988.

 Page 741
11. For various analyses of economic problems in the Philippines
during the Aquino period see Canlas 1993, Ilano 1989, Lopez 1989,
Sanchez 1987, Tan 1988, and Villegas 1991.
12. For an elaborate discussion of the split within the CPP/NPA see
Rocamora 1994 and "The Philippine Left" (1992), a special issue of
Kasarinlan.
13. Ramos was the AFP chief of staff and defense minister under
Aquino prior to being elected president in 1992.
14. See Rivera 1994b. Rivera argues in favor of institutional reform in
the Philippines, which includes a shift to proportional representation
and a unicameral parliamentary system. For a discussion of problems
confronting the Ramos leadership from both the structural and
systemic perspectives see Villacorta 1994.
15. For a discussion of the issues involving the Philippine Senate's
rejection of a new military base treaty with the United States, see
Kraft 1993 and Salonga 1995.
16. For background on the development and problems of the
Philippine military see Kessler 1989, Thompson 1992, and Mak 1993.
17. Based on interviews with key informants from the Department of
Foreign Affairs and Department of National Defense in Manila, May
1996. Apparently, some key foreign affairs officials perceive China as
a benign regional power, whereas others have taken on a wary
position. Within the defense establishment too there are differences in
terms of how officials perceive China. One high-ranking defense
department official even downplayed the strategic importance of the
Spratlys, while some military officers in the AFP were wary of
China's intentions in the region.
18. National Security Adviser Jose Almonte had expressed on several
occasions the desirability of America's continued presence in the
region as an effective deterrent to external threats to the Philippines
("Almonte: U.S. Presence Assures RP of Protection from Threats,"
Manila Bulletin, Jan. 8, 1996, p. 2).
19. On the distinction between modern and traditional states, see
Giddens 1987: 3-4.
20. Note that for the first time since 1987, the Department of National
Defense reported an increase in the number of NPA regulars during
1996, a rise of 4.6 percent to 6,300 (Manila Times, Dec. 31, 1996, p.
1). On the prospects for the Philippine left, see Kerkvliet 1996.
Chapter 18: Singapore
1. The first chairman, Dr. Hussin Mutalib, is a political science
lecturer from the National University of Singapore. The incumbent
chairman, Yang Razali Kassim, is a senior journalist with the
Business Times.
2. Presently a female public servant in Singapore, unlike her male
counterpart, is not entitled to medical coverage for her children.
3. The most recent census indicates that Singapore has a total
population of 3.1 million persons. Included in this figure are a total of
300,000 foreign workers, approximately 10 percent of the population.
Most foreign workers are employed either as blue-collar workers in
construction and shipbuilding or as domestic helpers and caregivers.

 Page 742
4. Whereas the strength of the public service has been capped at
60,000 employees, total government-related employment stands at
170,000 persons, far ahead of Seagate Technology, Singapore's
largest private-sector employer, which has a workforce of 18,000
employees.
Chapter 19: Asian Practice Of Security
1. Benedict Anderson (1991) notes how national consciousness has
become an integral part of Asian thinking.
2. For a good discussion of the different explanations for the
separation of Singapore from Malaysia, see Sopiee (1974).
3. On the reasons for the recent resurgence of Hindu nationalism see
Varshney (1993).
4. The compromise formula of "belief in almighty god" is one of the
five key principles (Pancasila) that forms the basis for the Indonesian
nation.
5. Suharto has in recent times become more supportive of Islamic
groups, in part to strengthen his position and title to rule. Islam,
however, is still not acceptable as an organizing ideology.
6. The case of Pakistan is an anomalous one in which the majority
community felt persecuted. The Bengalis, accounting for some 56
percent of the population, were in the majority, but nonetheless they
felt disadvantaged because of political domination by the Punjabi
community.
7. The purpose of the Sinhala construction is both ideational and
materialto elevate the psychological worth of the Sinhalese and
enhance their material position, as well as to legitimate Sinhala
domination of Sri Lanka's politics (Horowitz 1985; Pfaffenberger
1990) while marginalizing the position of the Tamils by depicting
them as intruders and inferior (Krishna 1996: 307-9). Construction of
Sri Lanka as a Sinhala-Buddhist nation also has the purpose of
countering the perceived danger of Westernization.
8. The Muslim insurgency in the Philippines has been resolved (at
least temporarily) by an agreement in September 1996 that provides a
measure of autonomy for the Muslim provinces. Disaffected groups of
the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), however, have joined
the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which has since stepped
up its guerrilla war against Manila.
9. The insurgencies in Myanmar have been brought to a halt, at least
temporarily, by the recent agreements between SLORC and the
minority communities (see Chapter 12).
10. The traditional bases for political domination in Thailand and
Nepal have since given way to quasi-democratic political systems.
11. Speech by Mahathir Mohamad at the First ISIS National
Conference on National Security, July 15, 1986, at ISIS (Malaysia),
Kuala Lumpur. For the text see ISIS Focus 17 (Aug. 1986): 16-20.
12. For a discussion of the strategies for addressing internal security
concerns, see Alagappa, National Security of Developing States
(1987a). On strategies for dealing with ethnic conflicts, see Horowitz
(1985) and Montville (1990).
13. Taiwan has no formal alliance with the United States, but there is
an implicit understanding that should the PRC use force in pursuit of
its unification goal, the United States will intervene in support of
Taiwan.

 Page 743
14. On the daunting challenges confronting the modernization of the
People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF), see Allen, Krumel, and
Pollack 1995.
15. Indonesia did want regional states to terminate their alliances with
external powers, but this proposal was not acceptable to the other
members of ASEANMalaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and the
Philippines. As a concession to Indonesia, the preamble of the 1967
ASEAN Declaration states that "all foreign bases are temporary and
remain only with the express concurrence of the countries concerned
and are not intended for use directly or indirectly to subvert the
national independence and freedom of states in the area."
16. Cambodia's membership in ASEAN has been delayed because of
the coup d'état by Hun Sen's forces in 1997.
17. On the spectrum of conflict management, see Alagappa 1995c.
18. For Taiwan, although attractive at the outset, over time this
strategy increased its dependence on China, making for vulnerability.
Taipei now seeks to limit Taiwanese investment in the mainlandbut
not very successfully. See Chapter 8.
19. On metaregime and its differentiation from regime, see Aggarwal
1985: 18-19.
20. In seeking to link the British theories of international society and
the American theories of regime, Buzan (1993a) makes the case that
an international society is a precondition for the development of
regimes.
21. On premodern, modern, and postmodern states see Giddens
(1987) and Sorenson (forthcoming).
22. The Indonesian annexation of Timor-Timor, on the other hand,
has not met with the same degree of resistance within the region,
although Singapore did in the early years abstain in the vote in the
Trusteeship Council of the United Nations. Timor-Timor, however,
was not an independent state, and Indonesia has had to justify the
annexation on the basis that it has been consented to by the elected
representative of the Timorese people. The annexation has still not
been accepted by the broader international community.
23. Schweller and Priess (1997: 23) argue that traditional realism
accepts that "institutions can, and sometimes do, matter."
24. Krasner (1993: 257) advances the argument that ideas initially are
just hooks to justify actions that are motivated by considerations of
wealth and power. He argues that material factors, not ideology, were
responsible for the decision to select sovereignty from the rich variety
of ideas in Europe. Sovereignty, according to Krasner, was not chosen
for the form of order it represented but because it was a device to
legitimate existing political practices. He does, however, accept that
once an idea like sovereignty becomes institutionalized it has
consequences for political behavior.
25. For a good discussion of the meaning of and conditions for
successful hegemony in the Gramscian sense see Mouffe 1979: 168-
204.
26. These principles were first articulated in the 1967 ASEAN
Declaration and reiterated in subsequent concords, agreements, and
treaties of the association. For the text of the ASEAN Declaration see
ASEAN Documents Series 1967-1986, issued by the ASEAN
Secretariat in Jakarta.
27. Taipei claims that mainland China and Taiwan are already two
separate


 Page 744
political entities and that all it is seeking is international recognition
of that fact until the time is propitious for reunification.
28. The German experience, and the prospect of the enormous
political, economic, and social cost of absorbing North Korea have in
recent times sobered the South Korean elite and tempered the
attraction of the goal of unification. Their preference now is for a ''soft
landing" rather than a sudden collapse or "crash landing," although
they may have little control over developments in North Korea.
29. The new guidelines have yet to be formally adopted. The Socialist
party, although it has come to accept the U.S.-Japan security treaty,
sees the new guidelines as a departure from existing laws and
requiring new legislation.
Chapter 20: Conceptualizing Security
1. Intension refers to a set of meanings or attributes that define a
concept or category and determines membership. See Sartori (1984:
22-28).
2. This may be due in part to the fact that this study is focused on the
perceptions and behavior of central decision makers.
3. On genus, specie, and subspecie definitions and the "ladder of
abstraction," see Sartori (1984: 44-46).
4. On conceptual traveling and conceptual stretching see Collier and
Mahon (1993: 845-55).
5. On "unsettling costs" associated with the introduction of new
concepts, see Sartori (1984: 52-54).


 Page 745

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Index
In this index an "f" after a number indicates a separate reference on
the next page, and an "ff" indicates separate references on the next
two pages. A continuous discussion over two or more pages is
indicated by a span of page numbers, e.g., "57-59."
A
Abu Sayyaf, 570
Accommodation tactics, 408-10
Aceh, secessionist movement in, 493, 503
Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA, 1996), 215
Afghanistan:
India's foreign policy autonomy over, 174
Pakistan and, 340-41, 342, 355-56, 363-65
Africa, Philippines' diplomatic relations with Islamic states in, 558
AFTA, 534, 572, 577, 603f, 635
Agent-structure problem, 60
Agreement on the Prevention of Incidents at Sea (1993), 223
Agriculture in Vietnam: urban-rural gap and, 471-73
doi moi policy and, 452
Ahmad, Datuk Abdullah, 519
Aksai Chin, 166f
Alagappa, Muthiah, 265
Al-Arqam movement, 523, 530
Alex Boncayao Brigade, 563-64
Ali, Sardar Assef, 345, 360
Alliances/alignments, 3
Chinese, 104-5, 634
continuing relevance of, 630, 633-35
Indonesia's refusal to take part in, 484-85
neorealist view of, 52
Pakistani, 353-54, 362
of Singapore, 598-600
with superpowers during Cold War, 91-99, 630
See also External security/external threats; Regional cooperation
Almonte, Jose T., 549, 567, 741n18
AL-Quds Committee, 334
Alsa Masa, 564
Ameresekere, Gunadasa, 386
Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia, Treaty of, 107, 412, 508,
534, 657
Amnesty International, 498
Anand Panyarachun, 430f
Ananda (Rama VIII), King, 427
Anarchy, 19
 more than one logic to, 61
neorealist assumption of, 38-39
principles of differentiation yielding different types of, 59-60
Andreski, Stanislav, 22
Anglo-Malaysian Defense Agreement (AMDA), 106, 531, 598
Anjuman-Sipah-c-Sahaba Pakistan, 358
ANSP, South Korean, 277f, 285-86
Anticommunist Law (South Korea), 269
Antidumping taxes, 128
Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League (AFPFL), 397
Antimilitarism, Japanese culture of, 228
Antistate terrorism, 257-58, 259
Anwar Ibrahim, 601
APEC, see Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
Apodeti party in East Timor, 495
Approaches to security, 16f, 51-57, 629-38
and alliance strategies, 630, 633-35
in Bangladesh, 329-35, 336f
in China,
(continued on next page)


 Page 822
Approaches to security (continued)
139-56
continuum of systems, 54-57
in Indonesia, 499-510
in Japan, 210-26
in Myanmar, 404-14, 415
for political survival, 683
in Singapore, 580, 597-606
in Taiwan in 1990n 1990s, 303-10, 311f.
See also Cooperative security; Self-help
Aquino, Benigno, 559
Aquino, Corazon C., 549f, 571-72, 577
national security under, 552, 559-66
and "total war" policy, 563-65
Arakani, 322
Archipelagic Outlook (Wawasan Nusantara), 486, 504-5, 738n12
ARF, see ASEAN Regional Forum
Aristotle, 369
Armed forces, see Military, the
Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), 555, 561-62
AFP Modernization Act (1995), 573
 and "total war" under Aquino, 563-65
Arms acquisition and deployment, 631-33
Chinese weapons modernization, 146-47
in India, 181-82, 711n23
in Myanmar, 414
regulation of, 54
Thai modernization program, 441
See also Military, the; Nuclear program/policy
Arthashastra, 74f, 164
ASEAN, see Association of Southeast Asian Nations
ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), 534, 572, 577, 603f, 635
ASEAN Post-Ministerial Conference (ASEAN PMC), 8, 222
ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), 3, 6, 8, 108, 136, 150, 635, 636-37,
643
agenda of, 637
China's changing role in, 150f, 154
comprehensive security study, 642
formation of, 222, 442, 636-37, 659
India as member of, 178
Indonesian role in, 510
Malaysia and, 541-42
Myanmar as member of, 412
Ashaari Mohamed, 523
Asia:
origins of term, 3
as representative of wider world, 10f
use of term, 3f
Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), 3, 8, 442
Asian-African Conference (1955), 107
"Asian" approach to cooperative security, 642-45
Asian Development Bank, 306f
Asian practice of security, 611-76
approach to security, 16f, 51-57, 629-38
basic features of, x, 611, 612-45
domestic, unit-level, and international factors in, 645-52
dynamic nature of, 638-40
explaining, 57-62, 611-12, 645-73
internal security concerns, 615-20
international security concerns, 621-24, 642
material and ideational factors in, 652-73, 674
neorealist analysis of, 649-52, 654-55, 674
scope of security, 16, 34-51, 266, 624-29
similarity and differences compared to the West, 640-45
state as primary referent, 28, 29-31, 32-34, 612-15
and "weak state" analysis, 647-49
 See also specific countries
Asian Relations Conference (1947), 107
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), 3, 6, 108, 178, 578, 643,
659;
China's involvement in, 143
East Asian Economic Caucus and, 543
headquarters in Singapore, 604
Indonesia as member of, 484
open regionalism adopted by, 628
Taiwanese participation in, 307
Vietnamese participation in, 455
Asia-Pacific region:
regional security cooperation in, 635-37
search for normative framework, 644
Asia Watch, 498
Aslam, 355
Asoka empire, 72, 74
Assam, insurgencies in, 317
Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS), 152
Association of Muslim Professionals (AMP), 581
Association of Southeast Asia (ASA), 107
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), 4, 8, 583
ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) and, 604
 bilateralism and, 507-8, 532, 546
China and, 136, 462-63, 670
constructive engagement policy, 412
Declaration (1967), 743n15
defense budgets of countries in, 506
Fifth ASEAN Summit (1995), 442
growth of community among members, 508-9
Indonesia and, 484, 507, 508-9, 511-12
limitations of, 108
Malaysia and, 532-34, 540, 546-47
Manila Declaration on the South China Sea (1992), 539, 573f
membership of, 107f
military ties within, 507-8
Myanmar and, 405, 411-13
as partial pluralistic security community, 658
(continued on next page)

 Page 823
(continued from previous page)
principles in conduct of international relations, 657-58
problems confronted by, 108
reasons for formation of, 107
regional cooperation through, 508-9, 635
search for normative framework, 644
Singapore and, 601-2
Sri Lankan overtures for membership, 371
strategies for regional survival, 533-34
Thailand and, 442
Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, 107, 412, 508, 534, 657
Vietnam and, 445, 455, 462
vitality after Cambodian conflict, 705n27
See also ASEAN Regional Forum
Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE), 581-82,
605-6
Aung San, 397f
Australia, Indonesia's "Framework Security Agreement" with, 485,
509-10
Autarky, 628
Authoritarian regimes, international behavior of, 22
Automobile dispute, U.S.-Japanese, 219
Automobile manufacturing in Malaysia, 529-30
Autonomy, threats to, 623
See also Political survival
Awami League, 318, 320, 718n4, 719n19
Awom, Permenas Ferry, 494
Ayoob, Mohammed, 647f
Ayuthia, Thai kingdom in, 76f
B
Babar, Nasrullah, 725n70
Baghdad Pact (1955), 104
Bajpai, G. S., 710n1
Baker, James, 283
Balance of power: China and, 117, 148-49
as Japanese approach, 211
Balance of power theory, 237
Balance of threat argument, 655
Balancing, 706n39
Indian post-Cold War strategy of, 177-78
internal, 178
neorealist prediction of, 58-59
in South Asia, 103-5
Baldwin, David, 50
Balladur, Edouard, 9
Baluchistan, environmental degradation in, 341
Bamars, 393, 397
Bandaranaike, Sirimavo, 370ff, 374
Bandaranaike-Chelvanayakam Pact (1956), 373
Bandwagoning, 59
Indian post-Cold War strategy of, 177
by Japan, 667
Bandwagoning with balance, as Indian interim strategy, 176, 178
Bangkok Declaration of 1967, 509
Bangladesh, 75, 315-37
from alliance to diversification in, 330-31, 336
approaches to security in, 329-35, 336-37
bilateral approach of, 331-33
China and, 335
emergence as independent state (1971), 103, 322, 324, 359, 618
external threats to, 326-29
geopolitical threats to, 316-17
illegal migrations from, 167, 190, 400, 627
joining global trend, 335
lessons from, 336-37
Myanmar and, 403
 and national identity controversy, 318
refugees, 324-26
regional and international cooperation of, 333-35, 337
socioeconomic issues in, 321
sources of insecurity in, 316-29
tribal insurgency movement in, 316-17, 321-24
weakness of state, 317-26
See also Indo-Bangladeshi relations
Bangladesh Constitution, Article 25 of, 315
Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), 320
Bangsa Moro Islamic Liberation Organization (BMILO), 558
Banharn Silpaarcha, 403
Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition, 518, 529
Bay, Christian, 726
Bay of Bengal, 317
Beg, Mirza Aslam, 344, 357
Bengali community in Pakistan, 618
Benshengren, 297-98
Berger, Thomas, 228
Berubari, transfer to India (1974), 331
Betts, Richard, 654
Beureuh, Daud, 493
Bhagirathi-Hoogli River, 327
Bhakti, Ikrar Nusa, 509
Bhumibol, King, 427
Bhutan, 75, 179
Bhutto, Benazir, 345f, 347-48, 354, 359-60, 362f, 725nn77, 82
Bhutto, Ghinwa, 360
Bhutto, Mir Murtaza, 360
Bhutto, Shaheed, 360
Bhutto, Zulfikar Ali, 342, 344-45
Biharis, 325
Bilateralism:
ASEAN and, 507-8, 532, 546
of Bangladesh, 331-33
China's preference for, 149, 151
Indonesia and, 479, 507-8
and Japanese confidence-building measures, 223
of Myanmar, 411-
(continued on next page)

 Page 824
Bilateralism (continued)
12
of Singapore, 600-601, 602
U.S.- South Korea alliance, 251, 252-54, 261, 280-83, 286
Bilateral Payments Arrangements (BPA), 544
Blackett Report of 1948, 183
Bombay Group, 188
Booth, Ken, 9, 27f
Border defense plan, Indian, 169-70
Border issues: India-Pakistan, 713n45
Sino-Indian, 166-67, 169-71
Sino-Soviet, 93, 118, 121
Thai, 436-39
Vietnam-Cambodia, 102f
Border security force (BSF), Indian, 190
Bourgeois liberalism, Chinese regime survival and, 133
Bozeman, Adda, 69
Brahmaputra River, 328-29
Bretton Woods system, 216
Brezhnev, Leonid, 93
British colonialism:
 in Burma, 397
in India, 159-61
in Malaysia, 513f, 516
Brown, David, 520
Brunei, 79-80, 106, 591
Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area
(BIMP-EAGA), 577
Buddhism:
in Myanmar, 408
in Sri Lanka, 386-88
in Thailand, 419
in Vietnam, 468-69
Buddhism Betrayed? Religion, Politics and Violence in Sri Lanka
(Tambiah), 387
Buddhist Church of Vietnam (BCV), 468
Budget, defense, see Defense budgets of Asian states
Buguk gangbyong, 267-68
Bumiputera, 517, 519, 520-21
Bumiputera Commercial and Industrial Community (BCIC), 526
Bunnag, Chuang, 731n4
Bureaucracy:
and corruption in China, 134
in Singapore, 605f
 South Korean, 269, 277-78, 716n8
in Thailand, 418f, 424-28
Burma, 623
as British colonial state, 397
China and, 167, 668
early history of, 77
Soviet policy toward, 91
Thailand and, 78
See also Myanmar
Burma Communist Party (BCP), 401
Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP), 392
Buscayno, Bernabe, 560
Buzan, Barry, 27f, 647f
C
Cambodia, 102
ASEAN and conflict in, 108
Malaysia's stand on, 538-39
political survival concerns in, 621-22
Thailand and, 421, 437f
Vietnam and, 76-77, 102f, 450f, 463-64, 538-39, 586, 592, 645
Cam Ranh Bay, Soviet naval base in, 592
Capitalist development state, 22
Carrascalao, Mario, 737n9
Carter administration, 100, 217, 258
Caste tensions in India, 191
Catholic Church: East Timorese, 495
Vietnamese, 468, 735n17
Central Bank of Sri Lanka, bombing of (1996), 378-79
Central decision makers, focus on, 15-16
Central Provident Fund (CPF), Singapore, 604
Central Reserve Police (CRP), Indian, 190
Central treaty organization (CENTO) Pact (1955), 104
Ceylon Electricity Board strike, 386
Ceylon Tamils, 373-76
Chakmas, 322
Chakri dynasty, 417, 437
Cham state, 447
Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge, 368, 376f, 380ff, 384, 388
Chari, P. R., 371
Chartchai Choonhavan, 423
Chiang Ching-kuo, 131, 247, 290, 294f
Chiang Kai-shek, 131, 162, 247, 289f
China, 2, 115-56
alliance strategies, 104-5, 634
 approaches to national security in, 139-56
ASEAN relations with, 136, 462-63, 670
aspirations for global position of power, 7-8
augmenting comprehensive national strength in, 139-40, 143-48
Bangladesh and, 335
Burma and, 167, 668
"century of humiliation," 116-17
Cold War security thinking, 92-94, 95ff, 116-23
concern over rising, 624
cooperative security in, 154-55, 156
diplomatic maneuvering of, 139f, 148-52
as divided nation, 614
and economic power increase, 1
economic security in, 127-29, 137f, 144, 150, 626
ethnic groups in, 124-25, 142-43
Four Modernizations policy, 122
impact on colonial powers, 616
(continued on next page)

 Page 825
(continued from previous page)
India and, 94-95, 162f, 166-67, 169-71, 317, 634, 667-68
Indonesia and, 497-98, 668
influence in Southeast Asia, 80-81
as interconnecting core of security region, 4
internal stability in, 133-35, 139, 140-43
international challenges to political ideology in, 622-23
international influence of, 136-37, 151
international recognition of PRC vs. ROC, 291-92
Japan and, 84-85, 97-98, 135-36, 203-6, 223, 665-67
Malaysian relations with, 539-41, 668
military in, 118, 121-22, 126, 135, 139, 145-48, 299-300
Mischief Reef seizure (1995), 204, 568, 573-75
multilateral security arrangements and, 636
Myanmar and, 393, 402, 727n6
national identity in conflict, 619
neorealist explanations of security practice in, 654
North Korea and, 99f, 242-44, 668
oil exploration grant to Crestone, 145, 457, 461
origins of, 66-67
Pakistan and, 95, 340, 354, 634, 668
People's Republic founding, 115
 prioritizing security concerns, 137-39
proclamation of territorial law (February 1992), 204
reappraisal of security in, 122-23, 670-71
referent of security in, 123-25
regime survival in, 132-35, 137f
responses to threat of rising, 665-70
scope of security in, 125-39, 155, 625
security environment in, 708n5
Singapore and, 592
Sinic interstate system, 66-71, 81-84
Soviet relations with, 90-96, 118-19, 121, 122-23
spheres of influence in, 82f
state and regime in, 123-25
strategic concerns of, 135-36, 138
territorial integrity preservation, 129-32, 137ff, 152-53
Thailand and, 102-3, 668
U.S. relations with, 97, 117, 119, 125-26, 137, 148-49, 292
Vietnam and, 447, 450f, 457, 460-63, 668f, 735n13
China and Taiwan, 100-101, 661
cross-straits economic interaction, 153, 313
historical association between, 288-90
international support for Taiwan, 305-6
 ''one country, two systems" formula, 152-53, 292-93
post-Cold War relations, 126
quest to unify, 313
redefinition of relationship, 307
Taiwanese approaches to security in 1990n 1990s and, 303-9
Taiwanese perceptions of Chinese threat, 299-302, 311, 668f
Taiwanese political influence, 309
territorial integrity issue, 131-32, 138, 152-53
Chinese Communist Party (CCP):
approach to China's domestic politics, 124
civil war between KMT and, 661
Politbureau, 138
Chinese ethnicity:
in Malay Archipelago, history of suspicion of, 583, 591
in Vietnam, 466
Chittagong Hill Tracts insurgency movement, 316-17, 322-24, 337
Chollima movement of 1958, 242
Chongryok anbo, 267, 273-74
Chulalongkorn the Great (Rama V), King, 418f, 424-25, 731n4
Chun Doo Hwan, 234, 275, 280
Churchill, Winston, 90
Citizens' Armed Forces Geographical Units (CAFGUs), 564
Citizenship provisions of Malaysian Federal Constitution, 517
Civilian control of Thailand, 431-32
Civilian Home Defense Forces (CHDF), Philippines, 555-56, 564
Civilian power, Japan as, 226
Class formation in Singapore, 596
Classical liberalism, state in, 30
Cliff, Roger, 661
Clinton, Bill, 135, 208, 214f
Clinton administration, 282, 636, 716n9
Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea (CGDK), 538-39
Codification of principles, rules, and procedures, 54
Coercion tactics in Myanmar, 408-10
Coexistence scenario of inter-Korean relations, 272-73
Cold War, 1
basis of cooperation and arms control during, 55
behavior of superpowers in, 58
Chinese security thinking during, 116-23
in continental Southeast Asia, 101-3
emergence of Asia-wide regional security system during, 3-6, 88-
109, 110
end of, 4, 11
India and, 161
origins in Europe, 88
 major-power interaction in, 91-99, 630
in maritime Southeast Asia, 105-6
in Northeast Asia, 99-101
regional cooperation and, 106-9, 111
in South Asia, 103-5
superpower competition and, 88-91
See also Soviet Union; United States

 Page 826
Collective defense, Japanese government's official stance on, 229
Collective security, neorealist view of, 52
Colombo Powers meeting (1954), 107
Colonial interregnum, 81-88
Asian international politics and, 656
and British in Burma, 397
and British in India, 159-61
and British in Malaysia, 513ff
development of Asian identity and, 109-10
and Dutch in Indonesia, 478, 480-82
end of Chinese world order, 81-84
and French in Indochina, 101-2
French, in Vietnam, 101-2, 447f
imperial Japan and animosities in East Asia, 84-86
multiethnic territorialisms created from, 616-19
Thailand's independence throughout, 433-34
transformation of political units during, 86-88, 111
Commander of the Capital Security and Order Act of 1979
(Thailand), 422
Commercial liberalism, 19f, 40, 53-54, 59, 62
Common Effective Preferential Tariffs (CEPT), 604
Common security:
 Palme Commission on, 39, 55-56
precursor of concept of, 38-39
prominence of, 48f
Communalism, 580, 588, 594
Communism:
collapse of international, 540-41
ideological threat in Indonesia, 489-92
internal conflict between non-communist beliefs and, 619-20
in Malaysia (1948-1960), 515-16
Malaysia's stand against international, 531-32
Thai strategy to fight, 422-23
threat of in Singapore, 580, 591-94
U.S. goal of blocking and rolling back, 89
Communist Information Bureau (Cominform), 90
Communist Party of China (CPC), 515
Communist Party of Malaya (CPM), 515-16, 540, 580, 592f
Communist Party of Thailand (CPT), 423, 425f
Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), 553, 555, 560-65, 576
Communist Review, 445
Community security, relational identity in, 55f
Competition, case for self-help and, 51-52
Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (Philippines), 565, 572
Comprehensive national strength in China, augmenting, 139-40, 143-
48
Comprehensive security, 624-29
Japanese concept of, 207-9, 212, 624, 641
non-conventional dimensions of, 626-29, 686
origins of, 640-42
political survival as core of, 625-26
structural norm of, 642
Thai concept of, 432-35
Comprehensive Security Strategy Report (1980),Japanese, 210, 212,
225
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), 151, 175, 177, 185, 353,
665
Conceptual traveling, 688-89, 697
Confidence-building measures:
Indo-Pakistani relations and, 168-69
of Singapore, 600
Sino-Indian relations and, 170
Conflict prevention, cooperative security role in, 637-38
Conflict resolution, Malaysian strategy of regional, 531-32
Confrontation scenario of inter-Korean relations, 271-72
Confucianism, 67, 70, 584, 593
Connor, Walker, 617
Conoco, Vietnamese oil exploration blocks lease to, 461
Consociational political models, 520
Constitutions: of Bangladesh, 315
as important source of national security, 516-17
of Indonesia (1945), 486ff
of Japan, 199, 229, 713n2
of Malaysia, 516-17
of Myanmar, 405-6
of Philippines (1973), 559
of Philippines (1987), 559-60
of Sri Lanka (1978), 381
Constructivism, 19f, 23, 652-53, 675, 707n40
domestic, 20f
explanation of security in, 57, 59-61
on Japan's security behavior, 198-99
on Japan's status, 9
shortcomings of, 61-62
synthesis with other theories, 62
Consultative Group on Indonesia (CGI), 485
Continuum of security systems, 54-57
Conventional defense, see Military, the
Conviction, India's modified structuralism as function of, 158, 195f,
198
Cooperative engagement and cooperative security, strategic principle
of, 55
Cooperative security, 12, 64, 640
case for, 53-54
China's adoption of, 154-55, 156
cumulative cooperation, 55
distinctiveness of Asian approach to, 642-
(continued on next page)

 Page 827
(continued from previous page)
45
emergence of, 630, 635-38
India and, 197
neorealist view of, 52
relational identity in, 54-55, 56
role of, 637-38
See also Regional cooperation
Cordilleras, 565
Corea, S., 374
Core values, 16-17
of Bangladesh, 317-18
changes over time in, 639
Pakistani, 343-44
in Singapore, 584-90
in Thailand, 420, 423, 435, 443
Corruption:
in China, 134, 141
in Philippines, 554
in Vietnam, 461-62, 467, 473
Cotton, James, 247
Council for Defense and National Security (CDNS), Pakistan, 348
Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific (CSCAP), 510,
716n10
Council for the Development of the Singapore Muslim Community
(MENDAKI), 581, 606
Crestone Energy Corporation, Chinese oil exploration grant to (1994),
145, 457, 461
CTBT, 151, 175, 177, 185, 353, 665
Cult personalities in Thailand, 420
Cultural-institutional context, 18, 60
Cultural pollution, Vietnamese campaign against, 469-70
Cultural Revolution, 93
Cultural threats, 628
Cumulative cooperation, 55
D
D-8, 491-92, 737n8, 739n28
Dalai Lama, 130, 142
Dalby, Simon, 28
Darul Ifta, 558
Darul Islam/Tentara Islam Indonesia (DI/TII), 491
Datuk Razali Ismail, 543
Declaration of ASEAN Concord, 107
Declaration on South Asian Cooperation (1983), 109
Decline stage in North Korean history, 243
Deep structure, 706n38
Defectors from North Korea, 249-50
Defence of Thailand 1994, The, 433
Defense budgets of Asian states, 632f
of ASEAN members, 506
in China (1989-1997), 709n13
in India, 181f
in Indonesia, 506
in Japan, 212, 633
in Malaysia, 535
in Pakistan, 352
in Philippines, 506, 555
in Singapore, 506, 598
in South Korea, 278-80
in Taiwan, 304
in Thailand, 430-31, 506
in Vietnam, 459
Defense forces, see Military, the
Defense industry:
of India, 182, 183-84
of South Korea, 278-79
Defense White Paper of 1994 (Japanese), 202, 206
Democracy:
in Bangladesh, 319-20, 335
challenges to in Philippines, 575-78
democratization of Taiwan, 131, 296-303, 305, 308, 312
internal threat in Indonesia, 492
mass rallies and demonstrations in name of, 620
in Singapore, 593
in South Korea, 273-76
in Thailand, 428
as threat in China and Vietnam, 623
as threat to political survival, 683
Democratic Alliance of Burma (DAB), 394, 401f
Democratic peace theory, 40, 705n19
Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), see North Korea
Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV), 101-2
Deng Xiaoping, 122, 145, 148f, 152, 154, 671
Depoliticization in Indonesia, 500-501
Desai, Morarji, 720n30
Détente, U.S.-Soviet, 95-96, 117, 119-20
Deterrence:
through danger, 263
Indian nuclear policy as, 184-86
 limited, 147-48
in Singapore, 597-98
Deudney, Daniel, 679
Developing Countries Payments Arrangements (DCPA), 544
Development, see Economic growth and development
Developmental realism, 267, 271
Developmental statism, 267
in South Korean context, 268-70, 276
Development Bank of Singapore, 602
Development Eight, 544
de Villa, Renato, 739n21
Dewitt, David, 12
Dhaka, 168
Dharma, 73f
Dharmista samajaya, 372
Differentiation, principles of, 59-60
Dinh Nho Liem, 457
Diplomacy:
in Bangladesh, 335
Chinese diplomatic maneuvering, 139f, 148-52
(continued on next page)


 Page 828
Diplomacy (continued)
Japanese resource, 216-17
neorealist view of, 52
Mischief Reef incident and, 573-75
Pakistani use of, 356-57
Taiwanese, 306-8, 311
Vietnam's use of, 462-63
Diplomatic Bluebook, Japanese:
of 1993, 206, 222
of 1995, 201, 209
Disaster relief in Japan, 225-26
Disasters, Bangladesh's vulnerability to natural, 317
Dispute settlement, mechanisms for, 54
Distributional structure, 706n38
Distribution of power:
neorealist explanations in terms of, 653-55
security practice based on changes in, 646-47
Distributive justice, internal conflict over, 37
DI/TII, 491
Divided nations:
ideational factors explaining conflict between, 661-63
 security referent in, 614
See also China; Korea
Djuanda, 504
Doi moi strategy, Vietnamese, 445, 451-55, 465, 474
reconceptualizing socialism, 446, 453-54, 476
redefinition of antistate political activities and, 465-66
regional cooperation, 446, 454-55, 474ff
Domestic constraints on Japanese security, 228-31, 233
Domestic constructivism, 20f
Domestic politics:
foreign policy designed to counter, 239
and Singapore core values, 587-88
Domestic security, see Internal security
Domestic threats, see Internal conflicts/security threats
Domino theory, 102
Do Muoi, 456-57
Dorff, Robert H., 28
Dostum, General, 356, 363f
DPRK, see North Korea
Drug addiction and trafficking, 627-28
in China, 134-35, 141-42
in Myanmar, 400
 in Pakistan, 341, 355
in Singapore, 606
in Taiwan, 302, 309
in Thai border areas, 438
Dulles, John F., 708n6
Dumont, Louis, 375
Dutch colonialism in Indonesia, 478, 480-82
Dynamic nature of security practice, 638-40
E
Earthquakes, in Japan, 210, 225
East ASEAN Growth Area (EAGA), 534
East Asia:
economic growth rate in, 7
hierarchic relations in, 110
imperial Japan and animosities in, 84-86
integration into international system, 82-83
East Asian Economic Caucus (EAEC), 6, 8, 143, 543
East Asian Economic Grouping (EAEG), 542-43
Eastern Europe, collapse of communist regimes in, 126, 132
East Timor, 485, 587, 737n10
secessionist movement in, 494-96, 503-4
Eberstadt, Nicholas, 249
Economic communities, 613
Economic cooperation:
examples of, 638
regional, 577-78, 603
security through, 640
Economic Development Board, Singapore, 602
Economic diplomacy in Bangladesh, 335
Economic dynamism of East and South-east Asia, international
politics and, 659-60
Economic globalization, Indian foreign policy autonomy and, 175
Economic growth and development:
in China, for comprehensive national strengths, 143-45
in East and South Asia, 7
in India, 186-89, 197
in Indonesia, 479, 483, 485, 487-88, 492
in Malaysia, 518-19, 526-27, 529, 545
in Myanmar, 394, 396, 410-11
in North Korea, 243-46
in Philippines, 566-67, 571-72, 577
as primary interest in international environment, 456f
as Singapore core value, 588-90
in Thailand, 421-22, 428-29
in Vietnam, 446, 452, 471-73
Economic inequality in China, instability due to, 134
Economic intelligence war, international, 129, 144
Economic interdependence, 53, 659-60
Economic policies, Pakistani, 348-49
Economic regionalism, 542-43
Economic security, 43, 266-67, 626-27, 628
in China, 127-29, 137f, 144, 150, 626
defining, 46-47
in hierarchical conceptualization of security, 693
in Japan, 207-9, 216-20, 232
in Malaysia, 527
in neorealist paradigm, 45
(continued on next page)

 Page 829
(continued from previous page)
perceived threats to, 627
in Philippines, 626
political survival and, 685-86
of Singapore, 590, 602-5, 607
in South Korea, 270-71, 285, 626
strategies to maintain, 628
of Taiwan, 301, 303, 308-9, 311
in Thailand, 434
threats to, 47
Economic threats to Singapore core values, 594-95
Elliott, David, 469
Empirical-inductive approach, 14-15
Energy security, 218, 686
Enrile, Juan Ponce, 561-63, 565
Environmental conservation, Japan's ODA for, 225
Environmental security, 43-45, 47, 150-51, 285, 626, 681
Ershad, General, 320, 323
Ethnic chauvinism, 580, 588, 594
Ethnic groups/tensions:
in Bangladesh, 321-24
in China, 124-25, 142-43
 in Malaysia, 514, 517-21, 547
in Myanmar, 393, 395, 397, 407, 410-11, 728n7
in Pakistan, 350, 358-60
in Singapore, 583
in Sri Lanka, 373-76, 650-51
in Vietnam, 466.
See also Insurgency movements
Ethnic neutrality policy in Singapore, 583, 588
Ethnoreligious conflicts, 35
Eurocentrism in international relations, 9-13
Europe, analogy with, 5
European Community, 128
Exchange of Information on National Economic Policies (EINEP),
544
Executive dominance in South Korea, 269-70, 276-77
Expediency, India's modified structuralism based on, 158, 194, 196
Explanation of Asian security practice, 57-62, 611-12, 645-73
constructivist, 57, 59-61
domestic, unit-level, and international factors, 645-52
in India, 193-96
in Japan, 226-31
material and ideational factors, need to combine, 652-73, 674
 neorealist, 57-59, 649-55, 674
synthesis, 61-62
"weak state" analysis, 647-49
External management, 266
External security/external threats:
in Bangladesh, 326-29
in Indonesia, 478, 496-99, 504-10
in Malaysia, 530-45
manufacturing false threats, 239
in Myanmar, 402-4
in Pakistan, 339-40, 350-51
in Philippines, 567-68, 572-75
in Singapore, 595-97
in South Korea, 270, 280-84, 286
in Sri Lanka, 370-71
in Vietnam, 460-64
F
Failed state, 35
Farakka, barrage and feeder canal at, 326-28, 719n19
Federalism:
in India, 192
in Malaysia, 524-25
Federal Party (Sri Lanka), 373f
Ferrer, Jaime, 564
Filipino Muslims, tensions over mass migrations from, 627
Financial crisis of 1997, 548
First Indochina War, 101-2
Fissile materials cutoff (FMC), 177-78
Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA), 106, 509, 525, 531, 535,
539, 598-99, 634
Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development
(China):
Eighth (1990-95), 142
Ninth (1996-2000), 145
Flexible diplomacy, Taiwanese campaign of, 306-8, 311
Floating mass, concept of, 500
Ford administration, 217
Ford Foundation, 735n12
Foreign investment:
in India, 175, 188
in Myanmar, 396
in Singapore, 602-3
in Vietnam, 452, 461
Foreign Investments Act, Philippines, 565
Foreign military bases:
 ASEAN on, 509
U.S. in Philippines, 496-97, 554, 567, 572-73, 577
Foreign policy approach of Sri Lanka, 370-71
Foreign policy autonomy in India, 173-79
Foreign policy of Myanmar, 411-13
Foreign workers in Singapore, management of, 604-5, 741n3
Foucault, Michel, 377
Four Modernizations, 122
Framework Security Agreement (1995), Indonesia-Australia, 485,
509-10
Freedom of diplomatic maneuvering, Chinese, 148
Free Papua Movement, 494
Freidberg, Aaron, 653-54
French colonialism in Vietnam, 101-2, 447f

 Page 830
Fretilin party in East Timor, 495-96, 737n9
Friedheim, Daniel, 59
Friendship, Cooperation, and Peace, Treaty of, 329-30
Friendship and Cooperation, Treaty of (1971), 95
Fukuda, Takeo, 224
Fukuda Doctrine, 224
FULRO (Front Unifié de Liberation des Race Opprimées), 450
Funabashi, Yoichi, 226
Functional imperative theory, 22
Functionally based international society, development of, 5-6
G
G-15, 178
Gandhi, Indira, 97, 173, 180, 330, 332, 671f, 720n30
Gandhi, Mahatma, 185
Gandhi, Rajiv, 97, 171, 180, 187, 346, 385, 671f
Ganges water dispute, 326-29, 332-33, 719n19
agreement for sharing dry-season flow (1975-1982), 332-33
Gangs, Chinese, 134
Garver, John, 708n2
Gas and Water Accord, Malaysia-Singapore (1988), 547-48
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), 128, 150, 595
 GATT Council, 604
Generic concept of security, 688-95;
criticisms of, 691-93
derivation of more concrete concepts from, 693-97
membership criteria, 689-90
Geneva Agreed Framework (1994), 278, 281f
Geoeconomics, 659
Geopolitical threats:
to Bangladesh, 316-17
to Singapore core values, 591-92
Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia (Malaysian People's Movement), 518
Gerombolan Pengacau Keamanan (GPK or Security Disturbance
Bandit Groups), 493-96
Giddens, Anthony, 15, 376
Gilpin, Robert, 237, 313, 706n39
Glaser, Charles L., 706n29
Global security, 297
Goa, 166
Goals, security:
of Indonesia, 484-89
of Malaysia, 545-46
of Myanmar, 395-96
Godson, Roy, 12
Golkar, 500
Goonetilleke, Oliver, 374
Gopalakrishnan, A., 183
Gorbachev, Mikhail, 100, 103
Gordon, Sandy, 196
Gore, Al, 43-44
Government-Linked Companies (GLCs), Singapore, 603f
Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GSIC), 604
Gowda, Deve, 187
Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, 82, 85, 641
Greenwood, Ted, 12
Grenada, U.S. invasion of, 586-87
Grieco, Joseph, 62, 706n30
Gross domestic product (GDP):
in Thailand, 429
world, Asian/European/U.S. shares of, 7
Gross national product in Philippines, 554
Group of 77, 334
Growth triangles, 534, 603-4
Guam doctrine (1969), 96, 107
Guided Democracy period in Indonesia, 480-82, 483
"Guidelines for U.S.-Japan Defense Cooperation" (1978), 213-14
 revision of(1997), 215
Gujral, I.K., 187
Gulf War (1990-91), 126, 220-21, 334
H
Haas, Michael, 642, 644
Habitable environment, state's capacity to provide, 30
Hai Hung Province, hot spots in, 736nn19, 21
Hakka, 717n5
Han Sung Joo, 283
Han Wan-sang, 274f
Hankamrata doctrine, 501-2
Hank Brown Amendment, 182, 362, 711n23
Hanshin earthquake (1995), 225
Haqiqis, 359
Hasencleve, Andreas, 675
Hashimoto, Ryutaro, 214
Hasina Wajed, Sheikh, 719n19
Hatta, Mohammad, 480, 737n4
Heavy Industries Corporation of Malaysia (HICOM), 519
Hegemonic expansion, Gilpin's theory of, 313
Hekmatyar, Hizb-i-Islami chief, 364


 Page 831
Heng Samrin, 538
Hertogh, Maria, riots over (1950), 594
Hierarchic conceptualization of security, xi, 688-97
Hierarchic system, historic, 110
Higher culture, Chinese idea of, 81, 84
Hindu-Muslim violence in India, 190-91, 617, 713n43
Historical animosities, Asian international politics and, 656-57
Historical Asian interstate systems, 66-81
external powers and, 80-81
Indic interstate system, 71-75
and international politics in Southeast Asia, 76-81
Sinic interstate system, 66-71
Historical context of threat perception, 265-66
Historical language movement (1952), 719n13
Historical legacy: internal conflicts and, 664
political survival concerns based on, 682
in Vietnam, 447-48
Ho Chi Minh, 453, 733n6
Ho Chi Minh Thought, 453, 734n7
Honasan, Gregorio "Gringo," 569, 571
Hong Ha, 458
Hosokawa, Morihiro, 208
"Hot spots" in Vietnam, 472-73, 736nn19, 20, 21
Hsien Loong Lee, 579
Huk peasant rebellion of 1940s and 1950s, 551
Human rights:
East vs. West on, 8
in Indonesia, 498-99
in Philippines, 556
in Singapore, 593
in Sri Lanka, 382-83
as threat to political survival, 683
in Vietnam, 457-58
Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), 350
Human security, nongovernmental approach in Sri Lanka to, 378-83
Human value, security as, 380-81
Huntington, Samuel, 9
Hussain, Altaf, 359
Hwang Jong Yop, 250
Hyderabad, 166
Hydrologic system, Ganges water dispute and damage to, 327
I
Ideational factors, xi, 612
 in China's security practice, 155
explaining threats to Taiwan's security with, 313-14
internal conflicts explained by, 650
Ideational factors and material factors, need to combine, 652-73, 674
to explain international conflicts, 660-64, 675-76
to explain variations in state behavior, 664-73
neorealist explanations and, 652, 653-55
social construction and changing nature of Asian international
politics, 656-60, 674-75
Identities, cultural-institutional context and, 60
Identity, national, see National identity
Identity dimension of metastructure, 266
Identity factors in Japanese security, 228-31, 233
Identity relations and security systems, 54-55, 56
Ideology, political, 266
in Indonesia, 489-92, 499-500
internal conflicts over, 36, 619-20, 651-52
international challenges to, 622-23
in North Korea vs. South Korea, 267-68
political survival concerns based on, 682-83
Singapore core values and, 580, 592-94
Ikeda, Hayato, 232
Illegal immigrants:
 in India, 167, 190
in Myanmar, 400
in Singapore, 606
in Taiwan, 302, 309
in Thailand, 437-38
Imperialism, Mao's united-front strategy against, 120
Income gap in Vietnamese rural vs. urban areas, 472
Independence of Malaya Party (IMP), 516
India, 157-97
aspiration to great-power status, 7-8, 72-73
China and, 94-95, 162, 163, 166-67, 169-71, 317, 634, 667-68
economic development, 186-89, 197
explaining security in, 193-96
foreign policy autonomy, 173-79
Hindu-Muslim violence in, 190-91, 617, 713n43
Indocentric subsystem and, 103-5
influence in Southeast Asia, 80
internal conflicts/threats in, 160-61, 167-68, 172, 189-93
internal security in, 189-93, 638-39
international relations during Cold War, 94-96
interpreting history of, 158-62
military strength, 181-86, 479, 501-2, 505-7, 711n23, 738n12
 modified structuralism in, 157-58, 194-96, 198
Myanmar and, 403
national identity in, 617
national power, 179-93
nonalignment policy of, 94, 176-77
nuclear program in, 177-78,

 Page 832
India (continued)
182-86
quest for leadership, 103-4
reappraisal of national security in, 671-72
SAARC and, 334
security concerns of, 2
security in postcolonial period, defining, 162-65
Soviet Union and, 91, 95ff, 173-74, 181-82
Sri Lanka and, 105, 180, 370-71
state in, 73, 164, 188-89
territorial integrity, 165-72
as threat to Bangladeshi security, 326-29
India Doctrine, 179
Indian empires, 71-72
Indian Limitation Act of 1877, 322
Indian Ocean, as zone of peace, 370
Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC),
172
Indian Ocean Rim grouping, 178
Indic interstate system, 71-75
Indigenous minorities in Southeast Asia, 78.
See also Ethnic groups/tensions
Individual security, 681
Indo-Bangladeshi relations, 167, 179, 192
Bangladeshi approaches to security in, 329-34
Bangladeshi geopolitical dependence on, 316-17
and Bangladeshi immigrants, 324
and sharing of water resources, 316, 326-29, 332-33, 719n19,
720n31
Indochinese wars (1945-54, 1959-75, 1978-91), 101-3
Indonesia, 477-512
approaches to security, 499-510
Archipelagic Outlook, 486, 504-5, 738n12
bilateral cooperation, 479, 507-8
changing worldviews and their consequences in, 480-84
China and, 497-98, 668
democratic threat to, 492
Dutch colony in, 478, 480-82
East Timor and, 485, 494-96, 503-4, 587
economic and political changes, 498-99
economic development in, 479, 483, 485, 487-88, 492
external threats and strategies, 478, 496-99, 504-10
historical predecessors of, 78-79, 80
ideological threats from communism and Islam, 489-92
internal strategies, 499-504
 internal threats to security, 477-78, 483, 489-96, 511;
international strategies, 504-10
major powers and, 483, 496-98
Medan riots (1994), 614
military in, 479, 501-2, 505-7, 738n12
national identity in, conflict over, 617-18
"national resilience" concept in, 478, 488-89, 511
Pancasila, 486ff, 491, 499-500, 617-18, 736n1
political stability in, 486-87, 500-502
referent of security in, 490
regime security in, 488-89
regional cooperation and strategies, 479, 508-10, 511-12
scope of security in, 624
secessionist movements in, 492-96, 502-4
security goals of, 484-89
security subsystem centered on, 105-6
Singapore and, 585, 589, 600-601, 602
sovereignty of, 484-85
stability of, 486-87, 492
unity and integrity of, national, 486
Indonesia Communist Party (PKI), 480, 482, 490-91
Indonesian Muslim Intellectual Association, 491
Indo-Pakistani relations, 104, 161-62, 339, 663-64
border clash (1987), 713n45
India's territorial integrity and, 166, 168-69
Indus Water Treaty of 1960 and, 328
internal Indian tensions and, 192
Kashmir dispute, 166, 168-69, 339, 353, 356, 361-62, 622, 647,
663-64, 722n20, 725n75
Pakistani fear of Indian hegemony, 343-44
Pakistani paths to security, 351-60
Indo-Sri Lankan Accord (1987), 371, 375, 387
Indus Water Treaty (1960), 328
Inequality: and instability in China, 134
in Sinic interstate system, 67-68
Infant mortality rate in Bangladesh, 321
Inflation rate in China (1989-1997), 709n13
Informal empire, constructivist explanation of, 59-60
Informal regionalism, 534
Information agencies in Myanmar, government, 407
Infrastructure, Indonesian development of, 503
Inland straits, Indonesian control over, 505
Inner Asian Zone, 68
Inner Mongolia, 124, 142-43, 619
Inoguchi, Takashi, 227
Institutional foundation, 266
in South Korea, 268-69, 276-80
Institutions:
cultural-institutional context, 60
explaining state behavior with, 59
institution-building in economic domain, 659-60
neoliberal institutionalism, 39f, 53
neorealist view of, 52
"new" institutionalism, 175

 Page 833
Insurgency movements:
in Bangladesh, 316-17, 321-24, 337
military threats of in Myanmar, 400-402
in Philippines, 555-65, 568-71, 576, 742n8
Integrated Program of Action (IPA), 109
Intellectual movement in Vietnam, 449, 468
Intelligence war, international economic, 129, 144
Interdependence, 40
economic, 53, 659-60
between Taiwan and mainland China, 301
See also Bilateralism; Multi-lateral security cooperation;
Regionalism
Interest groups, Pakistani security policy and, 349-50
Intergovernmental Agreement on the Second Crossing, Malaysia-
Singapore (1994), 547-58
Intergovernmental Group on Indonesia (IGGI), 485
Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative Organization, 505
Internal balancing, 178
Internal conflicts/security threats, 1
in Bangladesh, 320-21
causes of, 35-37
in China, 133-35, 139, 140-43
 foreign policy designed to counter, 239
historical legacy and, 664
in India, 160-61, 167-68, 172, 189-93
in Indonesia, 477-78, 483, 489-96, 511
in Myanmar, 396-402, 416
national identity and, 22f, 36f, 616-19, 650-51
in Pakistan, 338, 355, 357-60, 361, 364-66
political legitimacy and, 619-20
in Singapore, 580, 591-97
in Taiwan, 300, 314
in Vietnam, 446, 464-73, 475-76
See also Internal security
Internal Peace-Keeping Command Act (Thailand), 429-30
Internal politics in North Korea, 249-50
Internal security:
in China, approaches to maintaining, 139, 140-43
concern with, 615-20
ideological conflicts and, 651-52
in India, 189-93, 638-39
in Indonesia, 499-504
in Japan, 210, 225-26
in Malaysia, 515-30
 national identity conflicts and, 650-51
neorealist analysis and neglect of, 649-50
in Pakistan, 340-42
in Philippines, 575-78
in Singapore, 587-88, 605-6
in South Korea, 259
in Sri Lanka, 371-76
in Taiwan, 291
Internal Security Act: of Malaysia, 530
of Singapore, 593
International conflicts, ideational factors and explanation of, 660-64,
675-76
between divided nation-states, 661-63
between post-partition states, 663-64
International cooperation:
Bangladesh initiatives for, 334-35, 337
Thailand and, 442-43, 444
See also Regional cooperation
International Court of Justice, disputes referred to, 658
International economic intelligence war, 129, 144
International Islamic University, 545
Internationalism, 200
International military threats, lack of, 641
International Monetary Fund (IMF), 385
Indian foreign policy options constrained by, 175
Pakistan's overreliance on, 338, 350-51
International Peace Cooperation Law, Japan's, 221
International political survival, 38-42
International politics in Asia:
social construction and changing nature of, 656-60, 674-75
Southeast Asia, 76-81
International relations:
Chinese promotion of influence in, 136-37, 151
codification of principles, rules, and procedures to govern, 54
Eurocentrism in, 9-13
International relations theories, 237-39
International security, 296-97
changes in Asian approach to, 640
concerns of, 621-24, 642
interconnection of internal security and, 624
weak-state analysis and, 648
International society, 40, 705n16
development of functionally based, 5-6
International structural factors, security practice explained by, 646-47
International system:
 China's attitude toward, 149-50
post-Cold War, 174
International trade: Malaysia and, 545
Singapore's dependence on, 589, 595
International Trading Company (INTRACO), 603
Interstate systems, historical, see Historical Asian interstate systems
Interstate wars, 1
Intervention, as Pakistani path to security, 356-57
Intrastate security, 34-38, 64

 Page 834
Investment, foreign, see Foreign investment
Iran, Pakistan and, 725n82
Iran-China-India triangle, 711n21
Islam:
Bangladeshi shift toward Islamic world, 331
Central Asians' fear of, 364
extremists in Pakistan, 341-42
Hindu-Muslim violence in India, 190-91, 617, 713n43
in Indonesia, 489-92, 617-18
in Malaysia, 521-23, 544-45
in Philippines, 557-59, 565
Islamabad Accord of March 1993, 356
Islamic Bank, 545
Islami Jamhoori Ittehad, 357
J
Jackson, Robert, 32
Jalandoni, Luis, 569
Jamaat-i-Islami, 356
Jammu, Pakistani support to anti-Indian elements in, 356
Janata government in India, 180
Janata Mithuro, 386
Janata Vimukti Peramuna (JVP):
Action Center, 385
insurrection (1971), 368, 371-72, 378
insurrection (1987-89), 384-86
social justice platform of, 385-86
Japan, 2, 198-233
approaches to security in, 210-26
aspirations for global position of power, 7-8
challenge to centrality of China, 82
China and, 84-85, 97-98, 135-36, 203-6, 223, 665-67
as "civilian power," 226
comprehensive security in, 207-9, 212, 624, 641
concern in 1980n 1980s over rising, 623
defense spending in, 212, 633
development as economic superpower, 98
domestic and identity factors in, 228-31, 233
domestic security, 210, 225-26
dual identity of, 199-200, 213, 231f
economic security, 207-9, 216-20, 232, 626f
explaining security in, 198-99, 226-31
Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere of, 82, 85
impact of systemic imperatives in, 226-28
 imperial policy in Asia, 83-86
interest in Asia-Pacific security cooperation, 636
milieu goals, 209-10, 220-25, 232-33
multilateral security cooperation in, 221-23
Myanmar occupation in World War II, 397
National Defense Program Outline (1976), 97
neorealist explanations of security practice in, 654
North Korea and, 206-7, 215-16, 245
Pakistan and, 223-24, 363
postwar realism, evolution of, 199-200, 231-33
reappraisal of security in, 672
scope of security in, 201-10
Sinic interstate system and, 70-71
state in, 200-201
status of, 9-10
Taiwan and, 205, 289, 305, 313-14
traditional security, 201-7, 211-16
See also U.S.-Japan security relationship
Japanese Peace Treaty (1951), 89
Jathika arthikaya concept, 386
Jathika Chintanaya, 386
Jatiyo Party (JP), 320
Javanese empire of Majapahit, 79f
Jayawardena, J. R., 385
Jervis, Robert, 237f
Jeyaratnam, J. B., 587
Jiang Zemin, 127, 142, 152-53, 170f, 204
Job, Brian, 647f
Johnson, Chalmers, 9-10, 22
Johnson, Lyndon B., 118, 173
Johnston, Alastair, 69, 147
Johor, 525, 534, 603
Johore-Riau Empire, 603
Judiciary in Bangladesh, 319
Junagadh, 166
Junejo, 346
Jurong Town Corporation, 602
JVP, see Janata Vimukti Peramuna
K
Kabataang Barangay, 556
Kabisig program (Philippines), 560
Kachin minority in Myanmar, 401
Kaifu, Toshiki, 203-4
KAL flight 007, bombing of (1987), 715n9
Kalong Ningkan, Stephen, 524
Kamala, 367, 379-80
Kanapatipillai, Valli, 380
Kanemaru, Shin, 245
Karachi, violence in, 359-60
Karen nationalists (KNU), 437
Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP), 730nn28, 37
Karimov, Islam, 364
Karnaphuli hydropower project, 322
Kashmir, 192
Indo-Pakistani conflict in, 166, 168-69, 339, 353, 356, 361-62, 622,
647, 663-64, 722n20, 725n75
Katzenstein, Peter, 675
Kautilya, 73, 74-75
Kayin minority in Myanmar, 397, 399, 401-2

 Page 835
Keerawella, Gamini, 370
Kelantan, federal-state relations in, 524-25
Keohane, Robert, 20
Ketahanan nasional, 624
Khalistan movement, 356
Khan, Ayub, 344
Khan, Ghulam Ishaq, 345
Khan, Liaquat Ali, 343
Khan, Saeed M., 345
Khin Nyunt, 392, 728n17, 729n25
Khmer empire, 76
Khmer Rouge, 438, 463f
Khrushchev, Nikita, 91, 93, 119, 242
Khun Sa, 401, 438, 729n22
Kim, Hak-joon, 246, 250
Kim Il Sung, 90, 242-47, 249, 258
Kim Jong II, 243, 246, 248, 250, 714n5
Kim Pyong II, 250, 714n5
Kim Yong Nam, 261
Kim Young Sam, 274, 275-76, 280, 283ff
Kissinger, Henry, 283
Kodikara, Shelton U., 370
Konbaung dynasty, 77
Kono, Yohei, 205
Korea:
conflict between North and South, 99-100
as divided nation, 614
imperial Japan and, 84f
Japan's security concern over, 206-7
Moscow Conference to create free and independent (1945), 99
origins of conflict in, 662
overview of situation, 240-46
Soviet policy toward, 90
Taiwan and, 303
tributary relations with China, 69-70
See also North Korea; South Korea
Korea Energy Development Organization, 281
Korean language, state vs. national security in semantics of, 715n3
Korean War, 88-89, 99, 117, 252, 267
Kota party in East Timor, 495
Krasner, Stephen, 32, 34, 157, 194f
Kriangsak Chomanan, 426
Kuala Lumpur, 536, 538
Kuala Lumpur Declaration (1971), 107
Kuantan Principle, 538
Kukga anbo, 268, 275
Kuki, 322
Kunzru, H. N., 163
Kuomintang (KMT), 290-91
changing composition of, 293
civil war between CCP and, 661
political reform initiated by, 294-96
Taiwan conflict and, 100-101
Kwantung peninsula, 84f
Kyi Maung, 408-9
L
Labor legislation in Singapore, 604-5
Labor unions in Indonesia, control of, 501
Labor unrest in Singapore, 596
Lademora, Carlos ''Charlie," 556
Land reform:
in Philippines, 556
in Vietnam, 471f
Laos, 102
early history of, 77
 Myanmar and, 403
Thailand and, 421, 437f
Large-scale migration, 627
See also Illegal immigrants; Refugees
Lasswell, Harold, 50
Law Concerning Cooperation for United Nations Peacekeeping
Operations and Other Operations (Japan), 221
Law of the Sea Convention (LOSC), 207, 504f
Law Protecting the Peaceful and Systematic Transfer of State
Responsibility and the Successful Performance of the Functions of the
National Convention Against Disturbances and Oppositions
(Myanmar), 409-10
Law Protecting the State from Dangers of Disruptive Elements
(Myanmar), 406
Le Duan, 733n1
Lee Hsien-loong, 247
Lee Kuan Yew, 247, 377, 585, 589, 591, 596, 599, 600-601, 617
Lee Teng-hui, 132, 152, 288, 296, 717n5
Leghari, President, 348, 721n4, 722n20
Legislative Yuan, Taiwan, 290
Leifer, Michael, 505
Le Quang Thanh, 445
Liberal Democratic Party (LDP),Japanese, 200, 230f
Liberal institutional view in India, 161
Liberalism:
bourgeois, 133
classical, 30
commercial, 19f, 40, 53-54, 59, 62
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), 105, 368, 371, 373, 375-
76, 378, 387ff, 650
Libya, support of MNLF in Philippines, 558
Limited deterrence, 147-48
Line of Actual Control (LOAC), Sino-Indian, 170
Li Peng, 144, 171, 402
Lippman, Walter, 164
Logical-deductive approach, limitations of, 14

 Page 836
Logistics Command of U.S. Seventh Fleet, 599
M
Macapagal, Diasdado, 532
Mack, Andrew, 260
Magno, Jose, 564
Mahabharata, 74f
Mahathir Mohamad, 514, 518, 520, 522ff, 527, 533, 543, 548, 624-25
East Asian Economic Grouping and, 542-43
economic foreign policy under, 545
ethnic repression under, 547
Islamic solidarity and, 545
South-South cooperation and, 544
Vision 2020 and, 527-30
Mahavamsa, 387
Mainlanders, 297-98
Majapahit, Javanese empire of, 79f
Majoritarian state syndrome in Bangladesh, 322
Malacca sultanate, 79f
Malakand division, Islamist violence in, 358
Malaya, Japanese occupation of (1942-1945), 516
Malayan Emergency (1948-1960), 531
Malay community: negotiation with Singapore government, 581
Malay language, 521-22
Malays, 514
constitutional dominance of, 517
political dominance of, 516, 520-21
security and sovereignty of Malay state and, 521-23
security equated with Malaysian security, 517-21
Malaysia, 513-48
anticommunism and regional security, 531-32
ASEAN regionalism, commitment to, 532-34, 540, 546-47
and Cambodian conflict, 538-39
challenges and prospects for, 545-48
China and, 539-41, 668
communist insurgency (1948-1960), 515-16
conceptualization of security in, 514-15
constitutional basis of security in, 516-17
defense budget, 506
defense capability of, 534-36
development as security in, 518-19, 526-27, 529, 545
domestic foundations of national security in, 515-30
economic regionalism and EAEC initiative, 542-43
ethnicity and security in, 514, 517-21, 547
federalism in, 524-25
financial crisis of 1997 in, 548
formation of, 105-6
historical predecessors of, 78ff
Indonesia and, 507-8
international foundations of national security in, 540-45
international trade and, 545
Islam and, 521-23, 544-45
national identity in, 617
nonalignment and neutrality of, 536-37
referents of security in, 521-23
regional foundations of national security in, 530-40
scope of security in, 624-25
security goals, 545-46
Singapore and, 525-26, 585, 591, 600-601, 602
Singapore as national security concern, 525-26
South China Sea claims and, 539-40, 541
South-South cooperation and, 543-44
support of MNLF in Philippines, 557
Thailand and, 438
tolerance level for various migrants in, 691
U.N. and, 543
 Vision 2020, 527-30, 540f, 545
Malaysian Federation, 480, 585f
Malaysian People's Movement, 518
Malaysia-Singapore Airlines, 585
Malay sultans, 521, 523
Maldives, Indian forces in, 180
Malik, Abdul, 364
Manchuria, 84f
Mandala doctrine, 74
Manila Declaration on the South China Sea (1992), 539, 573f
Manipur, insurgencies in, 317
Mansfield, Edward, 22
Mao Zedong, 83, 92f, 115, 117ff, 120, 123, 670f, 708n3
MAPHILINDO, 532
Marcos, Ferdinand E., 549f, 552, 553-59
Marcos, Imelda, 558
Maritime resources: Chinese protection of, 129, 145
Thai concern over, 438
See also South China Sea disputes
Market economy in China, rise of localism due to, 124
Market failure, 703n33
Martial law: in Philippines under Marcos, 552f
 in Taiwan, lifting of (1987), 295
Maruyama, 83-84
Marxism, state in, 30
Marxism-Leninism in Vietnam, 447-48
Mass media, South Korea security policy and, 279
Masyumi, 481
Material factors, xi
internal conflicts and, 651f
Material factors and ideational factors, need to combine, 652-73, 674
to explain international conflicts, 660-64,

 Page 837
675-76
to explain variations in state behavior, 664-73
neorealist explanations and, 652, 653-55
social construction and Asian politics, 656-60, 674-75
Material structure of international system:
neorealist explanation of state behavior based on, 57-59
security practice based on changes in, 646-47
Material welfare, state's capacity to provide, 30
Matthews, John C., 706n31
Maull, Hanns, 226
Maximalist security subtypes, 693
May, Ernest, 50
Mayer, Peter, 675
Membership criteria for security concern, 689-90
MENDAKI (Council for the Development of the Singapore Muslim
Community), 581, 606
Mendiola massacre (1987), 563
Menon, Krishna, 163
Metastructure, 265-66
of security practice in South Korea, 268, 271-76
Middle class in Thailand, 426-27, 428
Middle East, Philippines' diplomatic relations with Islamic states in,
558
Migdal, Joel S., 704n6
Migration:
large-scale, 627
as threat to national identity, 690-91
as threat to political survival, 683
See also Illegal immigrants
Miki, Takeo, 217
MILF, 558, 570f, 742n8
Milieu goals, 702n28
in Japan, 209-10, 220-25, 232-33
Militarization of religious/caste tensions in India, 191
Military, the:
in Bangladesh, 320
buildup of, 631-33
changing role of force in Asia and, 658-59
in China, 118, 121-22, 126, 135, 139, 145-48, 299-300
in India, 181-86, 711n23
in Indonesia, 181-86, 479, 501-2, 505-7, 711n23, 738n12
Japanese defense program, 211-13
Malaysian defense capability, 534-36
manpower of Asian states, 632
 in Myanmar, 394-95, 399, 405-8, 413-14
neorealist emphasis on power of, 39
in North Korea, 250-54
in Pakistan, 344-53, 357-60, 365-66, 724n67
in Philippines, 555, 561-65, 573
resolution of nonconventional threats with, 686-87
in Singapore, 597-98
South Korean, 253, 280
in Sri Lanka, 376-78
in Taiwan, 291, 304
in Thailand, 420-24, 427, 429-31, 440-42
in Vietnam, 458-60
Military Bases Agreement (1947), U.S.-Philippines, 567, 572-73
Military bases in Philippines, U.S., 496-97, 554, 567, 572-73, 577
Military Secrecy Act (South Korea), 269
Military security:
China's diplomatic maneuvering for, 150
domestic constraints on in Japan, 228-29
and insurgency threats in Myanmar, 400-402
of South Korea, 270-71, 284
of Taiwan, 299-300, 311
of Thailand, 434-35
Militias, Indian caste tensions and formation of private, 191
Mindanao:
autonomy bill for, 565
economic development projects in, 571
MNLF-government agreement and, 570
Muslim problem in, 557-59
paramilitaries in, 556
Ministry of Finance and Economy (MOFE), South Korean, 279
Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), South Korean, 277-78
Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI),Japanese, 208
Minjok anbo, 275f
Mischief Reef, China's buildup on (1995), 204, 568, 573-75
Missile Technology Control Regime, 150, 175
Misuari, Nur, 557f, 565, 569f
Miyazawa, Kiichi, 9, 221-22, 224
MND, South Korean, 277ff
MNLF, 551, 553, 557-59, 565, 570, 576, 742n8
Modified structuralism, 157
in India, 157-58, 194-96, 198
Monarchy:
Chinese idea of universal kingship, 81, 84
in India, 73
 in Thailand, 418-20, 424-25, 427-28
Mongolia, Soviet policy toward, 90
Mong-Tai Army (MTA), 401
Mon minority in Myanmar, 401
Monsoon, 326ff
Moon, Chung-in, 614
Morgan, Patrick, 27f, 681
Morgenthau, Hans, 39
Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), 558, 570f, 742n8

 Page 838
Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), 551, 553, 557-59, 565, 570,
576, 742n8
Morrison, Charles, 537
Most favored nation (MFN) trading status for China, 128
Mountbatten, Louis, 168
Muhajir Qaumi Movement (MQM), 359-60
Muhajirs, 359
Mujibur Rahman (Mujib), Sheikh, 315, 319, 322-24, 329-30, 331f
Multilateral diplomacy: Pakistani use of, 356-57
Multilateral security cooperation:
beginning of, 635-37
for conflict prevention, 643
growth of, 151-52
Indonesia and, 510
Japanese, 221-23
Pakistani, 356-57
South Korean external security management through, 283-84, 286
Multilateral trade regimes, Singapore's support for, 604
Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC), 527
Multinational corporations, India's suspicions of, 175
Multinational states, security referent in, 613-14
Mumbai, bombings in (1993), 190
Murayama, Tomiichi, 205, 230
Muslim League (Pakistan), 347f
Muslims, see Islam
Muslim World League, 558
Mutalib, Hussin, 741n1
Mutual Defense Treaty (1979), 292
Mutual interest, 6
in cooperative security system, 54
Mutual knowledge, 703n32
Myanmar, 390-416
approaches to security, 404-14, 415
China and, 393, 402, 727n6
domestic threats in, 396-402, 416
economic growth and development in, 394, 396, 410-11
ethnic groups in, 393, 395, 397, 407, 410-11, 728n7
ethnic minority relations, managing, 410-11
external threats in, 402-4
factors influencing construction of security, 392-94
military in, 394-95, 399, 405-8, 413-14
military insurgency threats in, 400-402
naming of, 727nl
national identity, 407-8
 political challenges to regime, 405-10
political threats in, 398-99
referents of security in, 394-95
regionalism and, 411-13, 415
Rohingya refugees from, 325-26
security elite in, 391-92
security goals and perceived threats in, 395-404
social threats in, 400
Thailand and, 396, 401, 403-4
N
Nagaland, insurgencies in, 317
Nakasone, Yasuhiro, 97
Nakayama, Taro, 222
Nandy, Ashis, 367
Narain, Govind, 164
Nation, definition of, 704n11
National Assembly:
in Taiwan, 290
in Vietnam, 470
National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB),
394, 401f
National Coordinating Center for Preparedness (Thailand), 440
National Council of the Union of Burma (NCUB), 395, 401f
National Defense Policy (Thailand), 432
National Defense Program Outline for 1976 (Taiko), 211-12
National Defense Program Outline in and After FY 1996, see New
Taiko
National Defense Report (Taiwan), 299
National Democratic Front (NDF), Philippines, 562f, 569-70, 740n5
National Development Policy (NDP), Malaysia, 519
National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB),
Thailand, 439f
National Economic and Social Development Plan (Thailand), 432,
434, 439
National identity:
in Bangladesh, 318
in China, 619
China-Taiwan conflict over, 661
determination of threat to, 690-91
in India, 617
in Indonesia, 617-18
Indo-Pakistani conflict over, 663f
internal conflict and, 22f, 36f, 616-19, 650-51
in Myanmar, 407-8
in Pakistan, 618
political survival concerns based on, 682
 in Singapore, 583-84, 605, 607
in Sri Lanka, 618, 650-51
state's capacity to provide, 30
in Taiwan, 297-98
in Vietnam, 455, 475f
National ideology in Singapore, 583f
See also Ideology, political
National Intelligence Bureau (NIB), Myanmar, 392
National interest, internationalization of, 55
Nationalism, 631
emphasis in Myanmar on, 408

 Page 839
National League for Democracy (NLD), Burma, 409, 623
National Peace-Keeping Council (NPKC), Thailand, 427
National Preparedness Plan (Thailand), 432
National Productivity Board, Singapore, 602
"National resilience" concept:
in Indonesia, 478, 488-89, 511
in Malaysia, 527
National security, 30-31
minjok anbo, 275f
See also specific countries
National Security Council (NSC):
in India, 189
in Thailand, 439-40
U.S., 50
National Security Council Memorandum 68, 88-89
National Security Law (South Korea), 268f
National self-conception:
Indo-Pakistani conflict driven by competing, 663-64
political survival concerns based on, 682
See also National identity
National self-reliance in post-Cold War era, 630-31
National survival, 38-39
See also Political survival
National Trades Union Congress (NTUC), 594, 605
National Unification Board (NUB), South Korean, 277
National Unification Commission (NUC), Philippines, 568
National War Council Act of 1932 (Thailand), 439
Nation-building, 613
in multiethnic Asian societies, 616-19
regionalism and, 532-33, 546-48
Nation-state:
defined, 376
as most valued form of political organization, 613
as principal actor in Asia, 111
as referent of security, 638, 681
in Thailand, 420
transformation of political units empires into, 86-88
as unit of international relations in Asia, 87
See also State
Native Taiwanese, 297-98
NATO, 705n27
Natuna, 498
Natural resources, see Physical (natural) resources
Nature Society of Singapore (NSS), 582, 606
Naval power:
of India, 172
India's fear of great-power navies, 167
of North Korea, 252
of Philippines, 573
of Thailand, 441
Nehru, Jawaharlal, 161, 163, 166-67, 171, 185, 195, 671, 712n27
on balance of power in Europe, 195
on economic development, 186
foreign policy autonomy and, 173f, 176
on Indian history, 72f, 160
internal disruption under, 189
national power in view of, 179
nonalignment policy of, 94, 159, 176
Neofunctionalism, 54
Neoliberal institutionalism, 39f, 53
Neoliberalism, 19f, 39
case for cooperation, 53-54
critique of neorealism, 59
shortcomings of, 62
synthesis with other theories, 62
Neorealism, 18-19, 20, 703n1
assumptions of, 34, 38-39, 237
case for self-help, 51-52
criticisms of, 39-42
explanations of security practices, 57-59, 649-55, 674
hypotheses from, 238
on Japan, 9, 198
limitations of, 649-52, 654-55, 674
realpolitik compared to, 20-21
security as central concern of, 29
as starting point for analysis, 62
Nepal, 75, 105, 179
Netherlands East Indies (NEI), 736n2
Neutrality:
of Malaysia, 536-37
of Myanmar, 411-13
New Economic Policy (NEP), Malaysia, 517, 518-19
Ne Win, 391
New institutionalism, 175
New Korea Party, 279, 716n7
Newly emerging forces (NEFOs), 481, 532
New Order government in Indonesia, see Indonesia
New People's Army (NPA), Philippines, 553, 555, 560-65, 740n5
New Taiko, 201-2, 210, 212-13, 229, 666, 672
on domestic security, 225-26
functions of U.S.-Japan security relationship in, 214
New Taiwan dollar (NTD), 293-94
NGOs, see Nongovernmental organizations
Nguyen Duy Hinh, 733-34n6
Nguyen Dy Nien, 456
Nguyen Manh Cam, 734n12

 Page 840
Nguyen Van Hue, 70
Nixon, Richard M., 96, 119, 174, 232, 243
Nixon administration, 207, 219
Nixon Doctrine (1969), 211f, 536, 641
Nonaligned Movement, 107, 178, 334, 442, 484f, 533
Nonalignment: of India, 94, 176-77
Malaysia and, 536-37
of Myanmar, 411-13
Nonconventional dimensions of security, 43-51, 685-88
of comprehensive security, 626-29, 686
connection to political survival, 685-87, 693
connection to well-being of community, 687-88
criticisms of, 46-48
Nongovernmental organizations:
in Indonesia, 501
Pakistani security policy and, 349-50
in Philippines, 740n8
in Sri Lanka, 381-83
Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), 173, 175, 177-78, 206
Normative framework, 644f
North American Free Trade Agreement, 128
Northeast Asia:
security dynamics during Cold War, 99-101
soft regionalism in, 109
Northeast Frontier Agency (NEFA), 166
Northern Growth Triangle, 534
Northern Policy (nordpolitik) of South Korea, 100
Northern Territories, Japanese-Russian negotiations over, 202
North Korea, 99-100, 234-63
China and, 99f, 242-44, 668
conception of security in, 263
conflict between South Korea and, 662
deterrence through danger, 263
dominant conception of, 234-35
fears of the South, 256-57
foreign policy, 246-50, 263
gross national product (1953-1994), 241, 243
historic overview, 240-46
internal politics in, 249-50
international relations theories and, 237-39
Japan's security concern over, 206-7, 215-16, 245
Kim dynasty, 246-50
military doctrine in, 250-54
 nuclear weapons development in, 206, 260-63, 281
political survival concerns in, 621-22
poverty in, 244-46
preferences of, 254-57
South Korean scenarios of relations with, 271-73
Soviet Union and, 99f, 242-44, 245
and terrorism, 257-59, 715n19
United States and, 281-82, 716n9
North Vietnam, 449
North West Frontier Province (NWFP), environmental degradation in,
341
Nuclear energy, Japanese, 218
Nuclear program/policy:
in China, 121, 147-48, 151
in India, 177-78, 182-86
in North Korea, 206, 260-63, 281
in Pakistan, 352-53, 363, 723n50
Nuclear Suppliers' Group, 175
Nuclear weapons:
military effects of, 261-62
as political instruments, 262
Nunn, Sam, 705n23
O
Ocean territories of India, 172
Official developmental assistance (ODA) from Japan, 216-17
ODA Charter (1992), 224-25
political use of, 223-25
Off-shore resources, Thai concern over, 438
Ohira, Masayoshi, 207, 212
Ohn Gyaw, 412
Oil and natural gas deposits in South China Sea, 129, 145, 461
Chinese grant to Crestone to explore, 145, 457, 461
Vietnamese use of foreign companies to exploit, 461f
Oil shocks in 1970n 1970s: impact on Japan, 208, 217f
Philippines and, 557-59
Olalia, Rolando, 562
Old established forces (OLDEFOs), 481, 532
Oligarchy in Philippines, 551, 567, 578
Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988, Super 301
provision of, 219
Omnidirectional diplomacy of China, 149
Opposition parties, Taiwanese legalization of, 295
Oppressor, state as, 30
Order, security as, 371-72
Organisasi Papua Merdeka (OPM), 494
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD),
175
Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), 331, 491, 544, 557
Organized crime in China, 134-35, 141-42
Organized violence, definition of security in terms of, 49
Organski, A. F. K., 238
Outer Zone, 68

 Page 841
Overseas Vietnamese community, 465-66, 469
Owada, Hisashi, 220
P
Pairin Kitingan, Joseph, 524
Pak Hon Yong, 247
Pakistan, 75, 338-66
Afghanistan and, 340-41, 342, 355-56, 363-65
alliance/ alignment and, 353-54, 362
alliance-building by, 362
Bangladesh and, 317
Bangladeshis in, 324
challenges in post-Cold War world, 339-43
China and, 95, 340, 354, 634, 668
civil and military bureaucracies in, 346-49
core values, 343-44
directions of national security policy, 343-46
ethnic groups in, 350, 358-60
future of security in, 360-65
influences on security policy, 346-51
internal conflict and state control, 338, 355, 357-60, 361, 364-66
intervention and diplomacy of, 356-57
 Iran and, 725n82
Japanese official development assistance to, 223-24
military in, 344-53, 357-60, 365-66, 724n67
national identity in, 618
national liberation of Bangladesh from, 103, 322, 324, 359, 618
new imperatives in, 342-43
nongovernmental organizations and interest groups in, 349-50
nuclear program, 352-53, 363, 723n50
paths to security, 351-60
poverty in, 722n32
problems with present security policies, 361-62
regime legitimacy in, 345-46
regional developments and internal security, 340-42
regional influence and intervention, 354-56
regional tension and external challenges, 339-40, 350-51
repatriation of Biharis to, 325
security-through-strength approach in, 104-5
state building in, 344-45
U.S. and, 182, 340, 353-54, 362
See also Indo-Pakistani relations
Pakistan People's Party (PPP), 342, 347
Palme Commission, 39, 55-56
Palmer, Norman, 73
Pancasila, Indonesian ideology of, 486ff, 491, 499-500, 617-18,
736n1
Panchashila agreement (1954), 94, 159, 170, 710n2
Panganiban Reef, 204, 568, 573-75
Panikkar, K. M., 163
Panlong Agreement (1949), 407
Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), 522
Pant, K C., 164, 186
Paramilitary forces:
in India, 189-90, 192
in Philippines, 555-56
Park Chung Hee, 256f, 259, 275
Park Yong-Su, 234
Parliamentary democracy in Thailand, 428
Parliament in Bangladesh, 319
Partai Komunis Indonesia (PKI), 480, 482, 490-91
Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS), 518
Patel, H. M., 163
Pax Americana, 207, 213, 232
Peaceful evolution, 132-33
coining of term, 708n6
threat of, 42, 456
Pearl Harbor, Japanese attack on, 85f
Peiris, G. L., 382
Pemerintah Revolusioner Republic Indonesia (PRRI), 481-82
Penataran P-4 training, 499-500
People, States and Fear (Buzan), 647
People as referent of security, 31-32
People's Action Party (PAP), Singapore, 580-84, 585-86
decline in electoral support for, 587-88, 607
and economic growth, 589
political security and, 605
People's Alliance, 380-81, 388
Election Manifesto of, 380
political program of, 384
People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), 458-60
People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), 355
People's Liberation Army (PLA), 118, 121, 126, 135, 139, 145
military exercises in Taiwan Straits, 152
readjustment of force structure, 146-47
People's Republic of China (PRC), see China
People's war, Chinese doctrine of, 121, 145
Vietnam War as, 451
Perjuangan Rakyat Semesta (PERMESTA), 481-82
Perry, John, 257
Perry, William, 362
Peshawar Accord of April 1992, 356
Peterson, Peter, 38
Petroleum Reserve Law (1975), 218
Pham Dinh Tung, 735n17
Pham Hung, 450
Phibul Songkhram, 420
Philippine Constabulary, 555

 Page 842
Philippine Liberation Organization (PLO), 556
Philippines, 79, 549-78
under Aquino, 549f, 552, 559-66, 571-72, 577
challenges to democratic order in, 575-78
China and, 462, 668
defense budget, 506, 555
economic growth and development in, 566-67, 571-72, 577
economic security in, 626
evolution of conceptions of national security in, 551-72
external security of, 567-68, 572-75
insurgencies in, 555-65, 568-71, 576, 742n8
under Marcos, 549f, 552, 553-59
military in, 555, 561-65, 573
Mischief Reef incident, 204, 568, 573-75
NGOs in, 740n8
oligarchy in, 551, 567, 578
under Ramos, 550, 552-53, 561f, 566-75
referents of security in, 552f
state power in, debate over, 551-53
Sulu Sultanate, 106
U.S. military bases in, 496-97, 554, 567, 572-73, 577
 Vietnam and, 574
Philippines 2000, 571-72, 577
Physical (natural) resources:
absence of in Singapore, 588-89
in Myanmar, 393-94, 396
Physical security, state's capacity to provide, 30
Pluralistic security communities, 64
Plural market strategy of China, 144
Political control in Indonesia, 500-501
Political environment, investigation of, 17-18
Political institutions in Bangladesh, 319-21
Political legitimacy, internal conflict and, 619-20
Political-military security problems, 49
Political-military states, 22
Political realism, 20-21, 29, 74, 199, 652, 703n1
Political security in Thailand, 434
Political stability:
in Indonesia, 486-87, 500-502
in Malaysia, 529
Political survival:
as bottom line for all referents, 63-64
concerns over, 621-24
 connection of nonconventional dimensions to, 685-87, 693
as core of comprehensive security, 625-26
defined, 625
in hierarchical conceptualization of security, 693
international, 38-42
need for broad interpretation of, 679, 680-85
of Singapore, 106, 587-88, 621-22
Political threats in Myanmar, 398-99
Political units:
colonial rule and transformation of, 86-88, 111
nature of Asian, 644-45
Politicization of economic issues, 128
Pollution in Singapore, 606
Pondicherry, 166
Portsmouth, Treaty of (1905), 85
Portugal, East Timor and, 495
Posen, Barry, 650, 684
Possession goals, 703n28
Postcolonial state, 33f
Postmodern state, 33f
Post-partition states, ideational factors explaining conflict between,
663-64
Post-postcolonial era, 4-5
Postwar realism in Japan, evolution of, 199-200, 231-33
Poverty: in Bangladesh, 321
in China, 141
in North Korea, 244-46
in Pakistan, 722n32
in Vietnam, 472, 735n18
Power:
conflict over control and exercise of state, 36-37
realpolitik on aspiration to, 21
state behavior varying with differences of, 58
Power politics in Asia, tradition of, 111
Power transition in Asia, ongoing, 623-24
Prabakharan, Vellupillai, 376
Prajadhiphok (Rama VII), King, 425, 439
Prasad, Krishna, 712n35
Prathetchart, 420
PRC, see China
Predominance stage of North Korean history, 242-43
Prem Tinsulononda, 426, 428
Press freedom in Singapore, 593
Pressler Amendment, one-time waiver of, 362
Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), Sri Lankan, 377
Princely States, integration into Indian Union, 165-66
Privatization:
in Malaysia, 529
in Sri Lanka, 384
Pronk, Jan, 485
Prophet Muhammad Birthday Riots (1964), 594
Protectionism:
China's efforts to resist, 144
in Philippines, 567
"securitizing" economy and, 47-48
as threat to Indonesia, 498
as threat to Singapore, 595-96
in world trade, 127-28

 Page 843
PRRI/PERMESTA regional rebellions, 481-82
Prueher, Joseph, 463
Pueblo, USS, North Korean capture of, 256
Pundato, Dimas, 565
Punjab, Sikh militancy in the, 167
Punjabi community in Pakistan, 618
Purchasing power parity, 7
Pure power approaches, Indian norm against, 195
Q
Qaddafi, Muammar, 558
Qing dynasty, weakness of, 81-82
Quota limitations, economic, 128
Qureshi, Moeen, 354
R
Rabbani, Burhanuddin, 364, 725n73
Radcliffe Commission, 322
Rahman, Ziaur, 333
Rahula, Walpola, 388
Rajiv Gandhi Action Plan, 180
"Rally around the flag" phenomenon, 239
Rama I, 417
Rama IV (Mongkut), 419
Rama V, 418f, 424-25, 731n4
Rama VI, 419-20, 439
Rama VII, 425, 439
Rama VIII, 427
Ramos, Fidel, 550, 561f
Mischief Reef incident and, 573-75
national security under, 552-53, 566-72
Rao, Narasimha, 171, 174, 672, 711nn21, 23
Indian economic development under, 187-88
internal order under, 189
national power in view of, 180-81
nuclear program under, 183
Rao, P. V. R., 163
Rawls, John, 381
Razak, Najib Tun, 525
Reagan, Ronald, 97, 101, 214
Realism: developmental, 267, 271
limitations of, 155-56, 674
Taiwan's security conceptions in terms of, 312-14
use of term, 29
See also Neorealism
Realpolitik, 20-21, 29, 74, 199, 652, 703n1
Reappraisal of security, explaining, 670-73
Referent of security, 16-17
alternative, 33
in China, 123-25
contestation over, 681
in generic definition of security, 689, 693f
in India, 164
in Indonesia, 490
in Japan, 200-201
in Malaysia, 521-23
multiple and often competing, 63
in Myanmar, 394-95
nation-state as, 638, 681
people as, 28, 31-32
in Philippines, 552f
regime as, 394-95, 614-15
in Singapore, 582-83
in South Korea, 268, 275
state as, 28, 29-31, 32-34, 123-25, 164, 200-201, 612-15
in Taiwan, 296-99, 311
in Vietnam, 446
Reflectivism, see Constructivism
"Reform and open door" policy, Chinese, 122, 133
Reform the Armed Forces Movement (RAM), Philippines, 556, 559,
571
Refugees:
Afghan, 341, 365
to and from Bangladesh, 324-26
Rohingya problem of 1991, 325-26, 403
See also Illegal immigrants
Regime:
in China, 123-25
as security referent, 394-95, 614-15
Regime legitimacy in Pakistan, 345-46
Regime security, 696
in China, 123-25
as Indonesian security goal, 488-89
regional cooperation and, 533
in South Korea, 268
in Taiwan, political reforms for, 294-96
Regime survival:
in China, 132-35, 137f, 140-41
conflict over, 22-23
as North Korean goal, 263
Regime transitions, impact of, 22
Regime type, democratic peace theory on, 40
Regime type theories, 20, 21-22
Regional conflict:
Pakistani influence and intervention in, 354-56
Taiwan and, 303, 310
Regional cooperation, 106-9, 111, 635-38, 643
in Asia-Pacific region, 635-37
Bangladesh initiatives for, 333-34, 337
Indonesia and, 479, 508-10, 511-12
regime security and, 533
role of cooperative security, 637-38
Singapore and, 601-2, 607
in Southeast Asia, 635
Thailand and, 442-43, 444
Vietnam and, 446, 454-55, 474ff
See also Regionalism
Regional economic cooperation:
Philippines and, 577-78
Singapore and, 603
Regional environment, economic challenges for Singapore from, 595
Regional expansionism of Pakistan, 363-65
Regionalism, 628
economic, 542-43
Indo-Pakistani tensions and South Asian, 361
informal, 534
Malaysian
(continued on next page)

 Page 844
Regionalism (continued)
commitment to ASEAN, 532-34
Myanmar and, 411-13, 415
nation-building and, 532-33, 546-48
Philippines and, 572-75
soft, 109
See also Regional cooperation
Regionalization of international politics, 4
Regional resilience, 489, 509
Regional security:
Korean reunification and, 273
in Malaysia, 531-32, 534-37, 539-40, 541
in Thailand, 436-39, 443-44
U.S.-Japan security relationship and, 214
Regional security cooperation, see Regional cooperation
Regional security system during Cold War, emergence of Asia-wide,
3-6, 88-109, 110
in continental Southeast Asia, 101-3
major-power interaction in, 91-99
in maritime Southeast Asia, 105-6
in Northeast Asia, 99-101
regional cooperation and, 106-9, 111
 in South Asia, 103-5
superpower competition and, 88-91
Regional survival, ASEAN strategies for, 533-34
Relational identity, 54-55, 56
Religious conflict:
Indian internal order and, 190-91
in Vietnam, 468-69
Republic of China (ROC), 289-92, 297.
See also Taiwan
Republic of Korea (ROK), see South Korea
Republic of the United States of Indonesia (R.U.S.I.), 486
Research strategy, 15-23
Resource allocation in South Korea, 269, 285
Resource diplomacy, Japanese, 216-17
Rhee, Syngman, 259
Riau, 525, 534, 603
Riscassi, Robert, 252
Rittberger, Volker, 675
Roh Tae Woo, 275, 280, 283
Rohingya refugee problem of 1991, 325-26, 403
Roosevelt, F. D., 90
Rosberg, Carl, 32
Rosecrance, Richard, 20
Rosenau, James N., 369
Rossabi, Morris, 68
Roy, Denny, 654
Royal Thai Air Force (RTAF), 441
Royal Thai Army (RTA), 441
Royal Thai Navy (RTN), 441
Ruggie, John, 9, 19, 32, 59
Rumkorem, Seth J., 494
Russia, 542
China and, 136
Japan and, 202-3, 223
Pakistan and, 364
post-Cold War alliances with, 631
See also Soviet Union
Russo-Japanese War, 85
S
SAARC, see South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation
SAARC Preferential Tariff Arrangement (SAPTA), 178
SAARC Preferential Trade Arrangement (SAPTA), 109
Sabah, federal-state relations in, 524-25
Sabah United Party, 518
Sadharanaya lokaya, JVP vision of, 385
Salamat, Hashim, 565
Salas, Rodolfo, 562
Salleh, Harris, 524
Sangha, Buddhist, 386-88
Sangha Act (1902), Thailand, 419
Sarawak, federal-state relations in, 524-25
Sarin, H. C., 163f
Sarit, 427
Sato, Premier, 707n5
Saudi Arabia, mediating role in Mindanao conflict, 558
Saw Maung, 413
Schwartz, Benjamin, 83
Scientific security in Thailand, 435
Scope of security, 16, 34-51, 266, 624-29
broadening, 64
in China, broadening, 125-39, 155, 625
defining and delimiting, 51, 687
from generic definition of security, 693f
historical perspective on, 50
international political survival, 38-42
intrastate security, 34-38, 64
 in Japan, 201-10
nonconventional dimensions of, 43-51, 685-88
in Singapore, 590
in South Korea, 270-71, 284-86
in Taiwan, 299-303, 311, 313-14
Sea-lanes of communication, 438, 440-41, 541
SEANWFZ (Southeast Asia a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone), 108,
412, 509
Secessionist movements: in China, 130, 142-43
goal of, 32, 613
in India, 167-68, 172, 190
in Indonesia, 492-96, 502-4
in Philippines, 557-59
in Sri Lanka, 105, 370f, 373-76, 379, 618, 742n7
See also Insurgency movements

 Page 845
Second Indochina War, 102
Sectarian violence in Pakistan, 341, 358-59
Secularism as Bangladeshi core value, 318
Security: broader relevance of Asian, 6-11
conceptualization of, considerations in, 63-64
defining, xi, 11-13, 27-28, 164, 369, 680
at different levels, 49
evolution of meaning, 50
four elements of, 16-17
as generic concept, 688-95
See also Approaches to security; Explanation of Asian security
practice; Referent of security; Scope of security
Security dilemma, 238-39
Security Disturbance Bandit Groups, 493-96
Security forces in Sri Lanka, army as, 376-78
Self-Defense Force (SDF),Japanese, 200
Self-help, 18, 64, 642; case for, 51-52
as Japanese approach to traditional security, 211-13
relational identity in, 54, 56
Singapore's security thinking and, 579, 580
strategies for, 629-33
Self-reliance, national, 408, 630-31
Self-sufficiency, Indian economic development and, 187
Senkaku Islands, dispute over, 204, 665f
Separatists, see Secessionist movements
September 21 Movement (1972) in Philippines, 554
Shahbuddin, Makdoom, 72n26
Shanghai Communiqué (1972), 101
Shanti Bahini, 323
Sharif, Nawaz, 345, 347f, 356
Shimonoseki, Treaty of (1895), 84-85, 289
Shultz, Richard, 12
Siamese state, see Thailand
Siege legitimacy, 520
Sihanouk, 103
SIJORI development project, 525, 534
Sikh militancy in the Punjab, 167
Simla Agreement (1972), 169
Sindh province, Pakistan, 341, 359-60
Singapore, 79, 579-607
alliances and alignments of, 598-600
approaches to security, 580, 597-606
bilateral relations, 600-601, 602
China and, 592
communalism and, 580, 588, 594
conception of security in, 579-80
core values in, 584-90
defense budget in, 506, 598
deterrence and defense in, 597-98
economic growth and development in, 588-90
economic security in, 590, 602-5, 607
economic threats to, 594-95
ethnic groups in, 583
external threats to, 595-97
future challenges for, 606-7
geopolitical threats to, 591-92
ideological threats to, 580, 592-94
Indonesia and, 585, 589, 600-601, 602
internal political security in, 587-88, 605-6
Malaysia and, 525-26, 585, 591, 600-601, 602
national identity of, 583-84, 605, 607
national ideology of, 583f
political survival concerns in, 106, 587-88, 621-22
realist behavior of, 579-80, 606
referent of security in, 582-83
regional cooperation and, 601-2, 607
 scope of security in, 590
territorial sovereignty of, 585-87
threats to core values, 580, 590-97
tolerance level with regard to migration, 691
Singapore Armed Forces (SAF), 585, 597-98
Singapore Institute of Standards and Industrial Research (SISIR), 603
Singapore-Johor-Riau (SIJORI) growth triangle, 525, 534
Sinhala-Buddhist tradition, 386-88
Sinhala majority in Sri Lanka, 618, 742n7
nationalism of, 373f
Sri Lankan national identity and, 650-51
Sinhala Only Act (1956) in Sri Lanka, 373
Sinic interstate system, 66-71
end of Chinese world order, 81-84
Sinic Zone, 68, 70
Sino-Burmese Boundary Agreement (1960), 727n6
Sino-Japanese War, 85, 289
Sipah-e-Mohammed Pakistan (Soldiers of Mohammed), 358
Sison, Jose Maria, 560, 569
Six Nation-Five Continent Peace Initiatives, 180
Small arms, proliferation in India of, 191
Smuggling: in Singapore, 606
 in Vietnam, 461-62, 467
Snyder, Jack, 22
Social construction, changing nature of Asian international politics
and, 656-60, 674-75
Social control, Chinese loss of, 133-34
Social factors, see Ideational factors
Social instability, see Internal conflicts/security threats
Socialism in Vietnam, reconceptualizing, 446, 453-54, 476

 Page 846
Socialist Party in Japan, 230
Social justice, security as, 384-86
Social pollution, Vietnamese campaign against, 469-70
Social threats in Myanmar, 400
Society, terrorism against, 258
Sociocultural security, 627-29
Sociocultural values, political survival concerns based on, 682-83
Socioeconomic issues, 37
in Bangladesh, 321
in Myanmar, 410-11
in Pakistan, 338
Sociopolitical control in Indonesia, 500-502
Soft regionalism, 109
Solarz, Stephen, 730n27
Sorenson, Georg, 33
South Asia: economic growth rate in, 7
hierarchic relations in, 110
India and smaller states of, 178-79
Indocentric subsystem in, 103-5
Soviet Union and, 91, 104-5
South Asian Association for Regional
 Cooperation (SAARC), 108-9, 178f, 333-34, 362
Bangladesh's initiative to set up, 333-34, 337
Pakistani diplomacy through, 356-57
SAARC Preferential Tariff Arrangement, 109, 178
Sri Lanka and, 371
South China Sea disputes, 149, 204, 628
Indonesia and, 497-98, 510
Malaysia and, 539-40, 541
oil and gas resources and, 129, 145, 457, 461f
Philippines and, 204, 568, 573-75
Taiwan and, 303
Vietnamese-Chinese conflict and, 460-61, 462
Southeast Asia: continental, 76-78, 101-3
hierarchic relations in, 110
international politics in, 76-81
Japanese resource diplomacy with, 216-17
maritime, 78-80, 105-6
post-Vietnam, 536-37
regional security cooperation in, 635
Soviet policy toward, 91
transformation to stable, peaceful region, 658
Vietnam's reorientation toward, 455
Southeast Asia a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone (SEANWFZ), 108,
412, 509
Southern Philippine Council for Peace and Development (SPCPD),
570
South Investment, Trade, and Technology Data Exchange Center
(SITTDEC), 544
South Korea, 99-100, 264-87
changes in national priorities in, 639-40
China and, 244, 668
democratic transition and consolidation in, 273-76
developmental statism in context of, 268-70, 276
dominant security paradigm in, 265-71
economic security in, 270-71, 285, 626
external security management, 270, 280-84, 286
gross national product and per capital gross national product (1953-
1994), 241, 243
institutional foundation in, 268-69, 276-80, 716n8
internal security in, 259
Japan and, 223;
metastructural foundation of security practices, 268, 271-76
military and military hardware, 253, 280
multilateral security cooperation of, 283-84
North Korea and, 256-57, 662
North Korean terrorism against, 257-59, 715n19
 political survival concerns in, 621-22
politics in, 714n3
referent of security in, 268
scope of security in, 270-71, 284-86
security agenda, exploring new, 284-86
Soviet recognition of, 244
threat perception of, 271-73
unification goal of, 744n28
U.S.-ROK alliance, 251, 252-54, 261, 280-83, 286
South-South cooperation, Malaysia and, 543-44
South Vietnam, U.S.-backed, 449
Sovereignty, 743n24
as Indonesian security goal, 484-85
of Malay state, 521-23
as Singapore core value, 585-87
See also Foreign policy autonomy in India; Territorial integrity
Soviet Union: alliances in South Asia, 91, 104-5
in Cold War, 88-91
collapse of socialism in, 126f, 132, 626
Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) and, 101-2
India and, 91, 95ff, 173-74, 181-82
Mao's united-front strategy against, 120
 North Korea and, 99f, 242-44, 245
Sino-Soviet relations, 90-96, 118-19, 121, 122-23
Vietnam and, 102-3
Xin-jiang and, influence in, 130
See also Russia
Special Powers Act (SPA), Bangladesh, 319
Spratly Islands disputes, 535
Indonesia and, 497-98
Malaysia and, 539-40, 541
Philippines and, 568, 573-75
Vietnamese-Chinese conflict over, 460-61, 462
Sri Lanka, 75, 367-89
critiques of state's approach to security, 383-88
ethnic groups/tensions in, 373-76, 650-51

 Page 847
foreign policy approach, 370-71
human security in, nongovernmental approach to, 378-83
India and, 105, 180, 370-71
liberalization and privatization in, 384
military in, 376-78
national identity in, 618, 650-51
national security as state security in, 368-78, 388-89
nongovernmental organizations and, 381-83
Sinhala domination of, 373f, 618, 650-51, 742n7
violence and internal security in, 371-76
Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), 374
Sri Vijaya empire, 78-79, 80
Staatsvolk, conflict between indigenous minority communities and,
618
Stability as Indonesian security goal, 486-87, 492
Stalin, Josef, 90, 92, 119
Standard Defense Force (SDF),Japanese, 212f, 225, 230, 713n2
State: in China, 123-25
definition of, 704n11
failed, 35
identification of people with, 32
in India, 73, 164, 188-89
 in Japan, 200-201
as referent of security, 28, 29-31, 32-34, 164, 394-95, 612-15
relevance and effectiveness as political community, 32-34
types of, 33-34
State behavior, ideational factors and
variations in, 664-73
''China threat," 665-70
reappraisal of security in individual states, 670-73
State building in Pakistan, 344-45
State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), Myanmar, 390,
437-38, 623, 727nn1, 2
approach to security concerns, 404-14
decision-making system within, 391
groups challenging, 394-95
internal threats to, 398-402
Security and Management Committee of, 392
Three Main National Causes of, 395-96
State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), Myanmar, 727n2
See also State Law and Order Restoration Council
State practice, constructivist claim regarding, 60
State security in South Korea, 268, 275
State-society interactions, 20, 22-23
in Vietnam, 467-71
 See also Internal conflicts/security threats
Statism, developmental, 267
in South Korean context, 268-70, 276
Statist approach, 15
Stein, Arthur, 20
Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), 152
Strang, David, 32
Strategic aid, 223-25
Strategic cultures, 10, 21, 69
Strategic unipolarity, 541-42
Strikes: in Bangladesh, 320
in Vietnam, 467
Structural impediments initiative (SII) talks in 1989n 1989-90, 219
Structural-materialist theories, 23
Structural theory, 237f, 654, 667
Structure of security, 16f
Struggle and cooperation:
Chinese diplomacy of, 148-52
Vietnamese strategy of, 446, 458, 462
Student movement: in Thailand, 422-23, 425-26
Tiananmen Square incident in China, 126, 128, 132f, 137, 140-41,
203-4, 452
Subrahmanyam, K., 164
Subregional security systems during Cold
War, 99-106
continental Southeast Asia, 101-3
maritime Southeast Asia, 105-6
Northeast Asia, 99-101
South Asia, 103-5
Succession politics in North Korea, 248-49
Suchinda Kraprayoon, 427
Suez, British withdrawal from east of, 107
Suharto, 477, 624, 737n5
defeat of communist coup (1965), 482
Islamic community and, 491
national resilience development under, 478
New Order government under, 477-79, 483-84, 485
Suhrke, Astri, 537
Sukarno, 105, 477f, 485, 496, 511, 532, 585, 738n12
Guided Democracy period under, 480-82, 483
Sulu Sultanate, 106
Sundarji, K., 712n31
Sunni majority in Pakistan, violence perpetrated by, 358
Superpowers during Cold War: alliances/alignments with, 91-99, 630
 competition of, 88-91
See also Soviet Union; United States
Supranationalism, 613
Suu Kyi, Aung San, 398, 404, 406, 409, 623, 730nn28, 36
Suzuki, Zenko, 214

 Page 848
Systemic constraints and opportunities, 645
Systemic imperatives, impact on Japan's security policy, 226-28
System-level theories, 18-20
T
Taiko (1976), 211-12
Taiwan, 288-314
approaches to security in 1990n 1990s, 303-10, 311-12
currency appreciation in, 293-94, 313
democratization of, 131, 296-303, 305, 308, 312
diplomatic isolation of, 291-94, 310
economic prosperity of, 131
economic security of, 301, 303, 308-9, 311
ethnic division in, 297-98
Japan and, 205, 289, 305, 313-14
military in, 291, 304
national identity in, 289, 297-98, 311, 314
new conceptions of security in, 296-303, 311-12, 314
old conceptions of security in, 288, 289-91
origins of conflict in, 100-101
political survival concerns in, 621-22
political transformation of, 290-96, 310-11
 beyond realist paradigm, 310-14
referent of security in, 296-99, 311
scope of and threats to security of, 299-303, 311, 313-14
U.S. and, 101, 132, 291, 304-5, 312, 633-34
See also China and Taiwan
Taiwan Relations Act (1979, U.S.), 101, 292, 304
Tajikistan, 364
Tajiks, 130
Takeshima Islands, dispute over, 207
Taliban, Pakistani support for, 363-64
Taliban Islamic Student Militia, 356
Tambiah, Stanley, 387
Tamil Eelam, 650
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, 105, 368, 371, 373, 375-76, 378,
387ff, 650
Tamil separatist movement in Sri Lanka, 105, 370f, 373-76, 379, 618,
742n7
Tamil United Liberation Front, 373f
Tanaka, Kakuei, 217
Tang Liang Hong, 601
Tashkent Agreement (1965), 95
Tatmadaw, 399, 405-6, 728n17
Taxation in China, 141
Team Spirit military exercises, 254, 261
Technological security:
in Malaysia, 527
in Thailand, 435
Territorial integrity:
in China, 129-32, 137ff, 152-53
disputes over, 622
in India, 165-72
Malaysian federalism for, 524-25
Territorial security in Thailand, 436-39, 443-44
Territorial separatism in Taiwan, 302-3, 309-10
Territorial sovereignty, as Singapore core value, 585-87
Terrorism:
antistate, 257-58, 259
Japanese domestic security and, 210
North Korean use of, 257-59, 715n19
against society, 258
Terumbu Layang-Layang, 539
Textile dispute, U.S.-Japanese, 219
Thai kingdom in Ayuthia, 76f
Thailand, 417-44
Burma and, 78
 China and, 102-3, 668
toward civilian control in, 431-32
comprehensive security concept in, 432-35
concepts of security, 428-35, 443
core values in, 420, 423, 435, 443
defense budget, 430-31, 506
economic growth and development of, 421-22, 428-29
elite's construction of security in, 417, 435-43
elite's intentions and capabilities, 439-42
Laos and, 421, 437f
military in, 420-24, 427, 429-31, 440-42
Myanmar and, 396, 401, 403-4
national security in, 418-28, 443
toward regional and international cooperation of, 442-43, 444
territorial and regional security concerns in, 436-39, 443-44
Vietnam and, 77, 102-3, 437
Thanh Hoa province, hot spots in, 472-73, 736nn19, 20
Than Shwe, 402, 405f, 410, 412
Theater missile defense (TMD), 215-16
Thich Huyen Quang, 468
Third World:
China's military and economic assistance to, 120-21
 criticism of neorealists from scholars of, 41-42
Thirukural, 75
Threat construction, 692
social factors informing, 661-63, 664
Threat perception: historical context of, 265-66
in Myanmar, 395-404
in South Korea, 271-73
variations in, 665-70
See also External security/external threats; Internal
conflicts/security threats
Three worlds, Mao's theory of the, 120
Tiananmen Square incident (1989), 126, 128, 132f, 137, 140-41, 452
Sino-Japanese relations and, 203-4

 Page 849
Tibet, 124, 130, 142-43, 170
Timorese Democratic Union (UDT), 495, 737n9
Timor-Timor, Indonesian annexation of, 743n22
Tin Bigha corridor, transfer to Bangladesh (1992), 331
Tinker, Hugh, 72
Tin Oo, 408-9
Tiro, Hasan, 493
Tiruchelvam, Neelan, 382
Title to rule, internal conflict over, 36-37
Total factor productivity (TFP), 527
Total People's Defense System doctrine, 501-2
Tourism in Vietnam, 467
Tow, William, 262
Trabalhista party in East Timor, 495
Trade:
between China and Vietnam, 461-62
international, 545, 589, 595
See also Economic cooperation
Trade Union Congress of the Philippines, 556
Trading states, 22
Traditional security in Japan, 201-7, 211-16
Transitions, internal, 2
Travel to China, Taiwanese legalization of, 294-95, 301
Tributary relationships with China, 68, 69-70
encroachments upon, 82
Southeast Asia and, 80-81
Tripoli agreement (1976), 558
Tripura, insurgencies in, 317
Tripuri ethnic group, 322
Truong Chinh, 452
Tun Abdul Razak, 536-37
Tun Datu Mustapha Harun, 557
Tunku Abdul Rahman, 530-31, 532, 536
Turkey, Japanese official development assistance to, 223-24
Turley, William, 459, 470-71
U
Uigurs of Xinjiang, 124, 130
Ullman, Richard, 677-78, 687
Unemployment:
Ganges water dispute and, 327-28
among Vietnamese rural workforce, 471-72
Uniao Democratica Timorese (UDT), 495, 737n9
Unification scenario of inter-Korean relations, 272f
Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV), 468-69
Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), Myanmar,
407
Unipolarity, strategic, 541-42
United-front strategy of China, 119-21
United Malays National Organization (UMNO), 516, 518ff, 522
UMNO Youth, 601
United National Party (UNP) of Sri Lanka, 374, 375-76, 380
United Nations:
Bangladesh and, 332, 334
Indian foreign policy options constrained by, 175
Japanese bid for permanent membership in Security Council, 220-
21
Malaysia and, 543
peacekeeping operations, 220-21
United Nations Commission on Human Rights, China and, 151
United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs
and Psychotropic Substances, 729n20
United Nations Declaration of the Indian Ocean as a Peace Zone, 370
U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, 145
United States:
alliances in South Asia, 104-5
alliance strategies with, 631, 633-34
 ambivalent attitude of Asian states toward, 669-70
China and, 97, 117, 119, 125-26, 137, 148-49, 292
in Cold War, 88-91
defense perimeter in Asia, 89
East Asian security strategy, 135
Indo-American relations during Cold War, 94
maritime Southeast Asia and, 106
North Korea and, 281-82, 716n9
Pakistan and, 182, 340, 353-54, 362
Philippines and, 496-97, 551, 554-55, 567, 572-73, 577
regional security cooperation and, 636
role in Asia, 95-96
security commitment to East Asian region, 282-83
Singapore alignment with, 599-600
strategic dominance in Asia-Pacific, 541-42
Thailand's alliance with, 442-43
uncertainty over future role of, 2
unipolarity of international system and, 174
Vietnam and, 102, 452, 462
in Vietnam War, 95-96, 102, 118, 173, 449, 684
U.S.-Japan security relationship, 2, 200f, 634, 646, 667, 672
alliance in Cold War, 89, 91-92, 96-97, 98
 economic security and, 207-9
evolution of postwar real
(continued on next page)

 Page 850
U.S.-Japan security relationship (continued)
ism and, 232-33
impact of systemic imperatives on, 226-28
Japanese multilateral security dialogue and, 222
Japan's self-help efforts and, 211-13
Joint Declaration on Security (1996), 214-15
mission of, 229
new guidelines for (1997), 666
North Korea and, 281-82, 716n9
Pearl Harbor and, 86
reaffirmation of(1996), 98, 209, 214-15
tensions in economic relations and, 218-20
traditional security concerns as rationale for, 213-16
Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security (1960), 92, 214
U.S.-led concert of Western power, Indian fear of, 176
U.S. National Security Council, 50
U.S.-ROK alliance, 99, 100, 251, 252-54, 280-83, 286
Mutual Defense Treaty, 270
Team Spirit exercises, 254, 261
United States-Taiwan Defense Treaty, 709n7
U.S.-Taiwan security relationship, 101, 132, 291, 304-5, 312, 633-34
Unit-level theories, 20, 23, 645-46
Unity, as Indonesian security goal, 486
Universal kingship, Chinese idea of, 81, 84
Universal People's Struggle (PERMESTA), 481-82
Up-Country Tamils, 373
Urban-rural gap in Vietnam, 471-73, 475-76
USSR, see Soviet Union
Usui, Hideo, 223
Uyangoda, Jayadeva, 375
Uzbeks, 130
V
Vajiravudh (Rama VI), King, 419-20, 439
Values:
associated with political survival, 682
East vs. West value system, 9, 593
membership criteria for security concern, 689-90
See also Core values
Van Evera, Steven, 684
Velayati, Ali Akbar, 725n82
Venkatraman, President, 170
Ver, Fabian, 555
Viet Minh, French war with, 101-2
Vietnam, 445-76
Cambodia and, 76-77, 102f, 450f, 463-64, 538-39, 586, 592, 645
China and, 447, 450f, 457, 460-63, 668f, 735n13
construction of identity, 455, 475f
current security thinking, 455-60
current situation in, 474-76
division of, 448f
doi moi strategy and changing security views in, 445, 451-55, 465,
474
economic growth and development in, 446, 452, 471-73
ethnic minorities in, 466
external threats to, 460-64
historical legacy of, 447-48
internal threats to, 446, 464-73, 475-76
international challenges to political ideology in, 622-23
military in, 458-60
overseas Vietnamese and, 465-66, 469
Philippines and, 574
political culture of, 474-75
pre-doi moi security views, 448-51
reappraisal of security in, 672-73
reconceptualizing socialism in, 446, 453-54, 476
redefinition of antistate political activities in, 465-66
 referent of security in, 446
regional cooperation of, 446, 454-55, 474ff
Sinic interstate system and, 70
socialist North-capitalist South gap, 451
Soviet Union and, 102-3
state-society tensions in, 467-71
Thailand and, 77, 102-3, 437
United States and, 102, 452, 462
urban-rural gap in, 471-73, 475-76
world view of, 474
Vietnamese Catholic Church, 468
Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP), 445, 451, 464, 467, 476
administrative reforms, 470
current security thinking of, 457f
greatest challenge to, 470-71
Ho Chi Minh thought and, 453, 734n7
struggle for power, 448-49
Vietnam War: North Korean capture of USS Pueblo and, 256
North Korea's view of, 243-44
as "people's war," 451
Sino-Soviet hostile competition in, 93;
U.S. in, 95-96, 102, 118, 173, 449, 684
Vijigisu, 74
Vision 2020, 527-30, 540f, 545
Vo Nguyen Giap, 451
Vo Van Kiet, 473
W
Wachirayan, 419
Waever, Ole, 679
Waishengren, 297-98
Walker, R. B.J., 32-33
Walt, Stephen M., 11-12, 27f, 59, 62, 655, 681
Waltz, Kenneth, 9, 20, 39, 58f, 61f, 198, 226f, 237, 243, 247, 313,
654, 667, 706n39
War:
economic interdependence and incentive to wage, 53-54
in Indic interstate system, 73-74, 75
as obsolete,
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40
regime type and propensity for, 21-22
in Sinic interstate system, 69
Washington Conference (1921-22), 82, 85
Water resources:
Indo-Bangladeshi sharing of, 316, 326-29, 332-33, 719n19, 720n31
Singapore's reliance on external, 589
Wattanayagorn, Panitan, 615
Wawasan Nusantara, 486, 504-5, 738n12
Weak state analysis, limitations of, 647-49.
See also Bangladesh; Burma; Cambodia
Laos
Well-being of community, nonconventional dimensions and, 687-88
Wendt, Alexander, 59
Western colonial powers, see Colonial interregnum
Western "universal" values, as ideological threat to Singapore, 593
West Irian, 480, 493-94, 503
Wickremesinghe, Ranil, 376
Wolfers, Arnold, 39, 50
Women's Action Forum (WAF), 350
Women's rights in Singapore, 581-82
Wong Kan Seng, 586
Woodside, Alexander, 448
World Bank, 175, 338, 350-51, 385
World Conference on Human Rights (1993), 8, 629
World Institute for Development Economic Research (WIDER), 387
World Trade Organization (WTO), 128, 150, 307
World War II, ethnic tensions in Burma and, 397
Wright, Quincy, 46
X
Xinjiang, separatist forces in, 130-31
Chinese management of, 142-43
Y
Yang Lien-sheng, 68
Yang Razali Kassim, 741n1
Yeltsin, Boris, 223
Yomiuri Shinbun, peace constitution revisions proposed by, 230-31,
233
Yoshida, Shigeru, 203, 211
Yoshida Doctrine, 232
Young, Oran, 18
Yousaf, Ramzi, 725n77
Yugoslavia, war in former, 37
Yunnan, 396, 400
Z
Zhao Ziyang, 171
Zheng Chenggong (Coxinga), 288-89
Zhou Enlai, 118, 170f
Zia, Khaleda, 320, 323, 331, 351, 719n19
Zia-ul-Haq, 343f, 347, 355
Zone of Genuine Independence, Peace, and Neutrality (ZOGIPAN),
537
Zone of Peace, Freedom, and Neutrality (ZOPFAN), 107f, 497, 509,
536ff, 600